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two ordinary ones. There is an Instance of tbis on the Croft estate. At the 



top of the wood called Pokehouse, overhanging Aymestrey, there is a beech with 



two trunks, the one measuring about 12 feet in girth, the other about 10. It is 



obvious that to call this two trees is rather straining a point ; if it is considered 



ons tree, it is one of the very largest in the county. Another tree on the same 



estate and in the same wood, more immediately above the church and village of 



Aymestrey, has one clear trunk, about 15 feet in girth. This is the tree on 



which former generations of Lucton boys used to cut their names ; but I 



suppose the custom is extinct, for when I visited it a few weeks since I found 



the well-remembered initials of my old school-fellows, but very few recent 



names. The newest of all was not completed. The beginning was suggestive : 



it was 



A N 



which certainly looked more like the beginning of the name of some fair 

 maiden than of a rough sch jolboy, perpetuating his own name by means of his 

 pocket-knife. 



Beeches have always been favourites with love-sick youths for this very 

 reason. From the golden days in which Virgil's shepherds sang their respon- 

 sive strains, and carved the name of Amaryllis or Galatea on the smooth 

 beechen bark, down to the present, this has been an easy mode of testifying 

 devotion. One smiles to see such a quaint allusion to the practice as that of 

 Phillips, where speaking of a Herefordshire worthy, the great Lord Treasurer 

 Harley, he says, addressing his muse : 



Acknowledge thy own Harley ; and his name 

 Inscribe on every bark ; the wounded plants 

 Will fast increase, faster thy just respect. 



Philips, Cider, 1. 



. Crescent illae : crescetis amores. 



Virgil. 

 The mention of the great name of Harley, long illustrious, now almost 

 extinct, reminds us of their ancient seat of Brampton Brian. There grow the 

 finest beeches I have ever seen. There is one group of very large ones near the 

 cottage in the park, but some others still larger in a sheltered hollow further 

 up in the recesses of the hill. One of them is dead, but the trunk siill remains 

 firmly planted in the ground. It seems to have been broken short off by 

 the wind about four or five feet above the ground, perhaps more : it still mea- 

 sures 17ft. 3 in. in circumference. Several other of the finest trees seem to 

 have suffered almost the same fate in former years : they grow up in a huge 

 and massive trunk to eight or ten feet high, and then throw off huge and very 

 long limbs. In one case an old stump has thrown up a new trunk, so tall and 

 vigorous that by itself it would constitute a fine tree. Many of the beeches 

 there are of wonderful height and size ; and one that I measured lately is 19 

 feet in girth. I made another 21 feet, but that was measured rather lower 

 down. I should mention that it is almost impossible to be exact in such 

 measurement on account of the irregularity of growth in the trees, and the steep 

 slopes on which they grow. 



