Il8 THE DARLEV YEW. 



of the hollow. If it had followed a similar course to the other 

 side, the opening would have been completely closed ; but, as it 

 was, there was just room enough left to put an arm through the 

 opening. During all the time I had lived at the place, the head 

 of the oak had exhibited marks of great age ; and when I last 

 saw it, no change was observable, excepting that a large bough 

 had recently been broken off; and a gentleman, who was born in 

 1748, informed me that he had never noticed any change in the 

 tree. This instance shows that an oak tree may continue alive 

 for an indefinite time after it has long passed its best, and may 

 still go on making new wood in the bole. * 



A peculiarity of the oak is its tap root, which is large, and 

 penetrates very deeply into the earth. It must strike any con- 

 siderate mind that some essential benefit must accrue to the oak 

 from such a root, which is not common to other trees ; but I am 

 not aware that it has ever been considered whether the existence 

 of this root may not be essential to the strength of its timber. 

 About the year 1820 a part of Gostilee Wood, opposite Ingleby, 

 was fallen ; on the first day six oaks were fallen, and four of them 

 were shaken or cracked in the fall, which plainly showed that the 

 wood was not so strong or tough as usual in oaks ; and the con- 

 clusion which the fallers and myself came to was that the defect 

 was owing to the absence of tap roots, which had been caused by 

 the trees having been transplanted. One of the four was some 

 five yards in girth, and all of them apparently flourishing trees. 

 The last time I was at Ingleby, a very large oak had been blown 

 down in the orchard, and it had had no tap root. It was uprooted 

 exactly in the same way as is so commonly the case with the 

 Warwickshire elms. I never knew an oak with a tap root blown 

 down, and Virgil evidently thought it impossible, even by the most 

 violent storm. 



* In the Times of Nov. 1, 1S79, Mr. R. S. Baker, of Hai-grave Rectory, 

 North Hants., writes that from Queen Elizabeth's time downwards, a stone 

 with the date of the planting oaks in the plantations at Althorpe has been 

 continued, and that the 300 years' oaks are fine tall growing trees, with no 

 appearance of age or decay about them. 



