-REV. DR. GEE FAMOUS TEEES IN HERTFORDSHIRE. 15 



bury ; only, 200 years ago, she seems to have done it somewhat 

 more cheaply, e.ff. 



March, 1682. — For setting up on Sunday (twise) 8d. 



For setting up the Horses at Church (Fryday) Gd. 



April 15. — Setting up the Horses when Dr. Bell preached 4:d. 



Setting up the Horses when my lady stayed (for H. C. ?) at 



Whitehall 1«. Od. 



July, 1683. — Setting up the Coach Horses and Black Nags, morning 



and afternoon, at Michls., on Sunday Is. 8d. 



And so on. It is rather hard, after a life of such regular profession 

 as this, to he accounted an unbeliever 200 years subsequently to 

 one's own time, upon account of the capricious growth of a tree. 

 It is not every one whose friends could produce so much post-mortem 

 evidence of having lived, at least, as well as other people. 



I would say of trees historically, as well as naturally, famous, 

 that I shall be very grateful if enabled to enlarge my catalogue by 

 the kind information of my hearers. I leave all indi\T.duals now, 

 and would wish to be permitted to wind up my paper with two 

 remarks upon trees generally. I would try to enlist on your parts 

 a feeling of Conservative preference for the older kinds of trees. I 

 think that our old English trees have got such a character of their 

 own, and give such a character to the landscape, that there is a loss 

 when their monopoly of the fields is largely invaded. I grudge to 

 see some of the foreigners prominently introduced into what I 

 venture to call "our parks." I know a park a few miles hence 

 where the Armiearia imbricata is pushing its hard, cast-iron, puzzle- 

 monkey branches into the air. The Bcodara and Wellingtonia (or, 

 as it is now called, Seqtioia) are following up the invasion ; and I can 

 imagine how these colonial gentry will look down upon oaks and elms 

 in the days of our grandchildren. I am aware that this objection is 

 narrow, and a like narrow-mindedness, 200 years ago, would have 

 kept out cedars. Happily, a passing expression of complaint has 

 little effect either way. I would only press my stricture so far as 

 to urge that large planters should not introduce these strangers in too 

 large a proportion, and so alter the character of the English forest 

 scenery. On a very small scale I try to keep this in mind in 

 planting our churchyard, though I must confess to two Sequoias 

 which are already becoming too large for us. I like to think of 

 God's Acre in England as being English, and not New Zealand or 

 Califomian, ground. 



The one remaining reflection which I would ask to be permitted 

 to make is as to the moral impression, or even religious effect upon 

 us, produced by considering the longevity and slow growth and 

 firm hold of the earth taken by these sons of the soil. It must 

 strike us that there is here a singular contrast to the tree-planter's 

 own limited continuance on this same scene. A man plants an oak. 

 He never hopes to sit under it. When his threescore and ten 

 years shall be run out, the tree will be not haK-way towards 

 maturity. The most he can hope for is, as in the case of the 

 Oxhey Oak, that his great-grandson, though not the possessor of 



