Project Canopy recognizes champion tree, gives grant for urban fruit orchard; Madison, ME

Whopper poplar at Lakewood
BY DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer

06/22/2009

MADISON -- Tomatoes.

For the past few years, that is what Madison has been known for, with its massive greenhouses at Backyard Farms.

Now it's trees.

"I think it's kind of a funny thing, we grow tomatoes and we grow trees," said the town's Economic Development Director Joy Hikel.

The town of Madison has been recognized by the Maine Forest Service's Project Canopy as having the biggest balsam poplar tree in the state and is the recipient of a Project Canopy grant for a fruit orchard in the downtown business district.

There it is, right there on the 2009-10 Maine Register of Big Trees Web site: Poplar, balsam, Madison, Maine.