The author has given my friend the Professor credit for some of his measurements, but measured this tree himself, carefully.

It is a grand elm for size of trunk, spread of limbs, and muscular development,--one of the first, perhaps the first, of the first class of New England elms.
The largest actual girth I have ever found at five feet from the ground is in the great elm lying a stone's throw or two north of the main road (if my points of compass are right) in Springfield.
But this has much the appearance of having been formed by the union of two trunks growing side by side.
The West-Springfield elm and one upon Northampton meadows, belong also to the first class of trees.
There is a noble old wreck of an elm at Hatfield, which used to spread its claws out over a circumference of thirty-five feet or more before they covered the foot of its bole up with earth.

This is the American elm most like an oak of any I have ever seen.
The Sheffield elm is equally remarkable for size and perfection of form.

I have seen nothing that comes near it in Berkshire County, and few to compare with it anywhere.

I am not sure that I remember any other first-class elms in New England, but there may be many.
-- What makes a first-class elm ?--Why, size, in the first place, and chiefly.