John Bennett is Maryland’s real-life Lorax. Like the Dr. Seuss character, he speaks for the trees.

And he’s done so since 2007, when he saved the state’s Big Tree Program from shutting down under budget cuts. He’s keeping alive a tradition of documenting the state’s largest trees that is now 100 years old.

The irony is that big trees aren’t necessarily that big.

The title goes to the tallest and girthiest trees in every species. One of Maryland’s national champions is an 11-foot-tall shadbush in Caroline County. Another is a 112-foot American elm in Baltimore County. We’re no Virginia with 96 national champions, but Maryland has a bunch of big ones — 15 to be exact.

The search for big trees has storied roots. In 1925, Maryland’s first state forester, Fred Besley, created the first big tree contest, drawing 450 entries and awarding a $25 prize to the one who found the standout. Besley’s measuring system is still used today, delegating points based on height, circumference and wingspan.

His contest created a program that promotes the care of old trees and the planting of new ones thanks to tree-loving affection from the faithful.

After Maryland, state programs sprouted up across the nation. In the early 1990s, however, Maryland’s Forest Service shifted its focus to land management, and in 2005 it moved to cut the Big Tree program. Soon after, Bennett, a retired Cecil County teacher, raised his hand to revitalize the effort with the help of volunteers.

After the handoff, Bennett had only a box of index cards scribbled with measurements before modernizing the operation. He scoured the state for years with friends in their red Honda SUV, searching for the next towering timber. Today, Bennett, 77, runs the program from his desk.

“I got to see places that, I like to say, even the governor would never see,” Bennett said.

He now counts on more than 60 volunteers, largely retirees, who measure submissions from the public on a website and check up on old trees to make sure the catalog is up to date. It’s a shoestring operation thanks to about $2,000 in federal funds.

The state’s protected forests are “kind of a yawn,” for most people, Bennett acknowledged.

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But if someone says, “‘I have a champion tree on my property,’ then you perk up. ‘Oh, I have a tree. What’s your tree?’ Like exchanging pictures of your babies,” he added.

Years after measuring, he often received photos that told the story of the trees through their swings and treehouses, along with weddings held under their canopies.

“I just love that part,” he said.

One of the state’s premier tree huggers is Joe Howard, 94, with a grove of thousands of measured trees under his belt. Years ago, he biked around in pursuit of his passion. Today, his wife, Mary, pilots him in their silver Honda HR-V.

Back at home, their front door is adorned with a carved oak tree, its mat exhorting guests to “Plant a tree.”

His love of big trees grew as a kid after his family visited the Wye Oak on the Eastern Shore. That’s the biggest tree ever measured in Maryland at 96 feet tall with 31 feet around its waist, before it was felled in a 2002 storm. He continued the tradition as a part-time school bus driver, taking his kids to see it on sunny spring days.

Thanks in part to Howard, the state’s largest-known tree is a Montgomery County sycamore. Its co-discoverer, Joli McCathran, attributes her love of big trees to one of Howard’s tours in the 1990s.

Howard doesn’t like to talk about his favorite, an old tulip tree that curved and split into three trunks. Its owner cut it down last year.

“I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were even considering this?’” Howard said. “He said, ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me do it.’”

Big trees are a big deal. They need special love because they hold more carbon than young trees, provide more canopy cover and create healthier soil and better habitats for wildlife, said J.T. Bowers, deputy director of Maryland’s Forest Service.

And, to those who love them, they inspire.

“They just stand there for years and years. It’s amazing what they put up with. Think of all the storms they’ve had to live through — it’s incredible they live as long as they do. And I love them,” Howard said, pounding his fist against the table.

Last week, Bennett walked the grounds of the Donaldson Brown Riverside Event Center, an old estate in Cecil County and home to 16 qualifying big trees. He makes sure they’re remeasured every 10 years.

Bennett and his team are holding the second statewide big tree competition this summer. This time, you might just win $500, 20 times the prize of the last winner a century ago.

So grab a piece of string and a camera, and head to a state forest to start searching before Labor Day, when the contest ends.

And as you marvel at the big ones, remember little trees need love, too.

“My advice about big trees is, plant them,” Howard said. “Just have a little vision. Give them 75, 80 years, you might have a champion.”