EET. DR. GEE — FAMOUS TREES IN HERTFORDSHrRE. U 



33y-the-bye, you perhaps may care to know that the many Gospel 

 Oaks in the country had their names from the fact that, in per- 

 ambuhiting the parishes, the Gospel for Rogation Day was formerly 

 read when the beaters of the bounds reached that particular oak. 



I shall speak of the tall oaks presently. I believe that in what 

 I have said of the girth of oaks, I have said enough to begin a list 

 to which my hearers may add for themselves, and I hope that they 

 will give me the benefit of their possessed or acquired knowledge. 

 I know how many trees in our own neighbourhood I have omitted, 

 and how little justice I have done to Cassiobury, at our very door. 

 Now, with regard to height, you may say, "It is all very well 

 to measure gii'th, but how are you going to measure height? 

 Who is to tell us whether a tree is 130 or 140 feet high?" I 

 can give you two rules of thumb, which will, at least, assist cal- 

 culation. This is one. Supposing your tall friend to stand out 

 well in the open ; set by the side of him a stick of ascertained 

 height, say of 6 feet. "VVatch at the proper hour the length of 

 shadow cast, both by your six-feet rod and by the tree. Then cal- 

 culate in proportion the height of the shadows cast; e.g., If the 

 tree's shadow be 12 times the length, take its height as 72 feet. 

 Or, take three laths, join two of them at a right angle, and let each 

 lath containing the angle be of the same size. Then unite the 

 equal sides with a third, subtending the angle. iNow hold this 

 level and opposite the tree. Walk away until your eye looks up the 

 third and long side to the summit of the tree. You may now con- 

 sider yourself to be standing at the apex of an enlarged triangle, of 

 Avhich the ground line is one side ancl the erect tree another. You 

 measiu'e the ground line,* and in so doing you measure the height, 

 for it equals the perpendicular which you thus get. Q.E.D. I 

 know very little about these things, and am indebted to my naval 

 brother-in-law for the scheme, which, I am told, is used by sappers 

 and others in military engineering. We tried our laths upon oux 

 house, church, and other ascertained heights, and found them 

 correct. We then tried our triangle upon the tallest tree that I 

 know about here — the spruce in the Cassiobury Woodwalks, and 

 found the height to be some 135 feet. Timber trees are not very 

 high, if Brown, in ' The Forester,' be correct in giving the following 

 as the mean average height of the trees : — 



Oak 4o feet. Poplar 48 feet. 



Ash 38 „ Fir 57 „ 



Beech 45 „ Chestnut 44 „ 



Bh-ch 47 „ Sycamore 37 ,, 



Elm 44 „ Yew 16 „ 



Lime 44 „ 



I have reserved as an example of a tall tree the Panshanger 

 Oak, which is now, I regret to say, "in a very poor way," and 

 not long for its present lofty position. The ground appears to be 



* Of course I am aware that this is not strictly speaking the ground line, hut 

 a line say fiye feet above the ground. The ground line reaches at least a good 

 step farther back. 



