A&C		The Copper Beech Tree
Organizations & Collaborations What’s New? Calendar Damaris Fine Arts Award The Copper Beech Tree Local Artists Growing & Young Artists Miller Woods BenchART.plymouth A&C Goals Research & Resources Endless Possibilities People & Quotes Home Contact A&C		Location			The Copper Beech Tree was located next to the Wilcox House in downtown Plymouth Pictures of what’s left of the Copper Beech Tree
		In The News			“56" Copper Beech, Plymouth, Michigan. This Copper Beech needed to be moved 120' out of harms way. It was root pruned in spring, undercut in late summer and moved in early December. The trunk diameter is 56", weight approx. 350-400,000 lbs. A new method of moving was tested for the first time using a modular sled system.“ Worldwide Tree Moving Tree doc: Copper beech DOA, Plymouth Observer, Oct 16, 2003 Developer scuttles Wilcox condo project, by Tony Bruscato, Plymouth Observer, June 16, 2005
		Miller Woods			Friends of Miller Wood Deed may not save woods Lawyer: Restriction not legally binding, by Tony Bruscato, Plymouth Observer, July 17, 2005
		Abraham Lincoln’s Copper Beech Tree			Anderson Cottage News National Trust to launch “Living links to Lincoln” Old Soldiers Never Die Piece of a Lincoln’s favorite to live on Special Trees “We can learn a lot from big trees, which is why American Forests created the National Register of Big Trees in 1940. At 275 years of age, Lincoln's copper beech was youthful compared to many trees in the Register. Redwoods can live 10 times that long, and bristlecone pines can be more than 4,500 years old.” Nurturing Nature
			“Builders. When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our fathers did for us.’” John Ruskin “The Great Universe. Do you know that your bodies are made of some of the same substances that are found in the sun and other stars? You are a sample of the great Universe. So do not let little things trouble you but think and act as if you were a part of a bigger world than the little earth upon which you live.” E.B. Frost “Memory My mind lets go of a thousand things Like dates of wars and deaths of kings, And yet recalls the very hour – One noon by yonder village tower, And on the last blue noon in May – The wind came briskly up this way, Crisping the brook beside the road; Then, pausing here, set down its load Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly Two petals from that wild-rise tree.” Thomas Bailey Aldrich “The Time There is a time for some things, And a time for all things; A time for great things And a time for small things.” Cervantes
	After growing to an impressive 350,000 – 400,000 pounds, the Copper Beech tree was moved 120 feet, where it died 2 years later. The condo project that was going to be built on the Wilcox property has been cancelled. How many baby birds were born in that Copper Beech? How many new leaves grew on that tree? How many leaves do you think fell from one tree over 150 years? I wonder what Johnny Appleseed would think if he walked into our town today and saw our poor old copper beech tree laying on the ground in pieces. I bet Johnny would cry if he had to tell the ducks that their new swimming hole used to be home to a big old tree for more than a century & a half? Debra Madonna, July 17, 2005
	Maybe you think preservationist and conservationist is just another name for tree huggers, but it’s not. Preservationist and Conservationist know there are times when it’s appropriate to remove trees and plants, but it should be done carefully and only when absolutely necessary. The problem nowadays is that some people chop, ax and chainsaw trees for sport D. Madonna
	I searched and searched and searched and searched and searched and searched and searched and googled, but I couldn’t find one book or movie in which the hero doesn’t take care of others. I couldn’t find even one little book which honored those who clear-cut forests, burn rain forests, hunt endangered animals, step on ladybugs or extinguish fireflies D. Madonna
	After all, we cannot expect nature's forgiveness forever". Monte Hummel, World Wildlife Fund Canada There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before. Robert Lynd When one tugs at a single thing in nature... he finds it attached to the rest of the world. John Muir To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified... Theodore Roosevelt, What is life? it is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.  It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. Crowfoot (1821-1890), Blackfoot Native American The human brain now holds the key to our future. We have to recall the image of the planet from outer space: a single entity in which air, water, and continents are interconnected. That is our home. David T. Suzuki, Canadian Geneticist and Environmentalist We’ve got to save the world Someone’s children, they may need it. So far we’ve seen The big business of extinction bleed it. We’ve got to save the world. We’re at the mercy of the few, With evil hearts determined to Reduce this planet to hell, Then find a buyer and make a quick sale. We’ve got to save the world Someone else may want to use it. It’s time you knew How close we’ve come. We’ve gonna lose it - we gotta save, we gotta save, we gotta save the world George Harrison, "Save the World" If the environment can't support beavers, ducks or moose, how long will it be able to support people? Commemorative Stamp Bulletin, Canada Post Corporation If we love our children, we must love our earth with tender care and pass it on, diverse and beautiful, so that on a warm spring day 10,000 years hence they can feel peace in a sea of grass, can watch a bee visit a flower, can hear a sandpiper call in the sky, and can find joy in being alive Hugh H. Iltis What is the use of a house if you don't have a decent planet to put it on? Henry David Thoreau Of the estimated 500 million species of plants and animals that have existed since life began on earth, only about 2 million are here today.  This means that about 99.5 percent of all species have become extinct. Extinct and Vanishing Species, V. Ziswiler To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. William Blake, 1757-1827 Humanity must stop behaving like a Gengis Khan of the solar system and think of itself...  as nature’s co-pilot. Edgar Morin, French Sociologist Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction. Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius. Edward O. Wilson, Biologist If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear? Anybody hear the forest fall? Cut and move on and take out the trees take out wildlife at a rate of a species every single day take out people who lived with this for 100,000 years - inject a billion burgers of beef - grain eaters - methane dispensers - Through thinning ozone, waves fall on wrinkled earth - gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars, speak of a drowning - but this, this is something other, busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world where wild things have to go to disappear forever... If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear? Anybody hear the forest fall? Bruce Cockburn, Canadian singer How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? We are part of the Earth, and it is part of us... We know the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next - for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. Chief Seattle, 1854 The bulldozer and not the atomic bomb may turn out to be the most destructive invention of the 20th century. Philip Shabecoff, New York Times Magazine, 4 June 1978 If we go on as we are, we will destroy in the next century everything that the poets have been singing about for the past two thousand years. Fred Bodsworth, The Ontario Naturalist What is the nature of a species that knowingly and without good reason exterminates another? George Small, The Blue Whale, 1971 Who will speak for Planet Earth? Carl Sagan					"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity ... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself." William Blake (1757-1827) "If you will think of ourselves as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, you see that we are the earth, we are the consciousness of the earth. These are the eyes of the Earth. And this is the voice of the earth." Joseph Campbell "Most people are on the world, not in it-- have no conscious sympathy or relationship      to anything about them-- undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching, but separate." John Muir "Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth. To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring— these are some of the rewards of the simple life. The most precious things of life are near at hand, without money and without price. Each of you has the whole wealth of the universe at your very door. All that I ever had, and still have, may be yours by stretching forth your hand and taking it." John Burroughs (1837-1921) American Writer and naturalist Mankind is part of nature and life depends on the uninterrupted functioning of natural systems." World Charter for Nature - Adapted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, 1982 The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only hope. When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s life may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. Wendell Berry, American Writer Without habitat, there is no wildlife. It’s that simple. Wildlife Habitat Canada