4 EET. DE. GEE FAMOUS TREES IN HERTFOEDSniEE. 



Perhaps this may not be an inappropriate place to give you the best 

 version I know of the common prognostication of weather founded 

 on the earlier appearance of the leaves of the oak or of the ash. 

 The prognostication seems little worth, the earlier leafage having 

 relation to what has been, rather than to what will be. The deep- 

 rooted oak thrives best in a dry season, and the shallower ash in 

 rainy springtimes. The verse is as follows : — 



" If the oak opens before the ash, 

 'Twill be warm and dry, ^vith good wheat to thrash ; 

 But if ash leaves open before the oak, 

 There'll be cold, and of rain too great a soak. 

 If the oak and the ash open nearly together. 

 Look out for a summer of changeable weather." * 



I string together a few remarks on other trees generally. I have 

 spoken of elms as foreigners, but I admit that they were naturalised 

 in the times of the Heptarchy. Like the old family of Coplestane, 



" They were at hame 

 When the Conqueror came." 



They have given Saxon names to many English villages, as Elm- 

 bridge, Elmham, Elmsthorpe, Elmstead, Elmstone, and Elmwell. 

 The elm's failing is to become hollow at 80 years of age, and at 

 that time its arms and roots both became brittle. It has a special 

 beetle to itself called the elm-beetle {Scolytus destructor). Its 

 great value is for articles subjected to alternate wet and dry con- 

 ditions, e.g. for pumps, troughs, conduits, water-wheels, and water- 

 gates. If the elm be originally an immigrant, he has since be- 

 come an emigrant also. There is this much to be said in support 

 of the idea that the wych elm does ripen a seed ; so it may be 

 thought to have been the earlier or more recognised elm. Perhaps 

 it was from his own personal connexion with this country that 

 Philip the Second of Spain planted the avenues of Madrid with 

 English elms. Learned men differ as to the origin of the name wych 

 elm. There are three derivations proposed. 1. Erom the Saxon 

 word "wich," a village or town, as Sandwich, Middlewich, etc. 

 This would make the wych elm to be " the village elm." 2. Erom 

 the word wych meaning a box or press, such having been made 

 originally of this wood. Our modern word hutch would be a cor- 

 ruption of this, and wych (spelt at first hivmcce) is applied in old 

 writings to the ark of the testimony, as also to provision boxes in 

 daily use. We have, in old writings, ''wyches for the cheeses." 

 3. From a superstitious notion that witches frequented this tree, 

 dancing round it or dwelling under it. So far as I can distinguish 

 the original orthography, it seems in favour of the second meaning, 

 which would derive the word from wych, a chest or box. 



The beech tree peculiarly claims the neighbouring county of 

 Buckingham as its own. It gives its name to the county, as well as 



* I have found this and much other tree lore in an article on Ornamental 

 Planting in the ' Quarterly Review ' for July 1876 (No. 283). I have made 

 very free use of the information there contained ; sometimes adopting the very 

 expressions. 



