202 



JHfeadow measures lift. 3in., and several others of about the same size are to 

 be found in the walk through the grove or rookery. This grove, by the way, 

 occupies the north side of a steep hill, and affords ample proof that such a 

 position is the best for the growth of oak timber. The boles of all the varieties 

 here, whether peduncvlata, sesillillora, or intermedia, shoot up in the race of 

 rivalry for air and sunshine from 30 to 40 or 50 feet in height, without any 

 appreciable difference between them. There are various causes to which this 

 may be attributed. The sensitiveness of the oak and some other trees to the 

 south-west wind is shown by the leaning of the exposed branches from the south- 

 west to north-east, and by nothing more strikingly than by the healthy and 

 uninterrupted growth of this class of timber on slopes whose Northern aspect 

 would render them most unfavourable for crops of annual growth, or even the 

 more delicate class of shrubs. The N.E. wind, though equally tyrannical in its 

 season, has no such chafing and distorting effect upon our forest kings, and it 

 has the less power of mischief from its rarely finding the trees in foliage. 

 The soil on Northei'n slopes also retains its moisture unaffected by summer 

 drought, a condition of almost unequalled importance for the growth of timber. 

 The annular deposits of fresh growth of wood will be found to indicate with 

 exact fidelity the character of each successive summer, forming a sort of 

 hygrometvio calendar of past years, marked by an annalist that never errs, the 

 band of Nature. 



There is a sketch of the mansion at Whitfield made in the year 1800 by 

 Mr. James Wathen, a well-known Hereford character. It represents the House 

 standing on a plain lawn, and gives very accurately the grass slopes on the 

 North and East sides of it. The sketch is too inartistic to lead one for an 

 instant to doubt its exactitude, and it affords proof, therefore, that all the 

 trees now there have been since planted. Allowing for their nursery life, they 

 may be said to date with the century, and their measurements will therefore 

 show a growth of G9 years. 



The finest tree here is the Cedar of Lebanon, opposite the door. It ia 

 a very handsome luxuriant tree, still growing fast. It meas\u-es, before giving 

 off any branches, at 2ft. 6in. from the gi-ound, 12ft. Sin. in circumference, and 

 at 3ft., 10ft. 5in. It is well represented in the opposite photograph. Another 

 cedar lower down, near the croquet ground, measures only 8ft. 4in. in girth. 



The trees, however, which give, and will continue more and more, to give 

 character to the North side of the gardens at Whitfield, are a group of four 

 Silver or Mount Atlas Cedars (Cedras argentea), or as they are sometimes called 

 African, or again, Atlantic Cedars. Their tall, straight stem, their horizontal 

 branches, and their fine grey or silvery foliage are already beginning to be very 

 effective. The trees on the lower North side measure 7ft. lOin. and 7.6 in 

 girth, and those on the higher ground nearest the drive measure 6.1 and 5.6 

 respectively. They are nearly 60 feet high, and are still growing freely. They 

 have not yet began to show any signs of throwing out those horizontal branches 



