i 
Ua 
The Forest Trees of Wiltshire. 139 
another set spring out at opposite angles to the first row, taking a 
somewhat similar form of growth to them. High up above these 
are many smaller ones forming a fine head, towering up into an 
imposing mass of foliage. It is a noble and grand-looking tree, 
and barring the vacuum caused by the loss of that great limb, it is, 
for its age, very symmetrical. It is difficult to get at the spread 
of the branches, a difficulty enhanced by the loss of this great 
limb; but as, on the opposite side it is fully sixty feet from the 
_ foot of the tree to the drip from the outer twigs, it may be fairly 
estimated that the circumference of the spread would, but for that 
loss, be some four hundred feet. There are several elms in the 
* immediate neighbourhood of this great tree, of nearly equal size at 
a few feet from the ground; but they are not to be compared with 
. it in any other point. Favouring the indigenous, rather than the 
non-indigenous side of the question as to the common elm, it may 
i be stated that these trees have an appearance of much greater age 
_ than their majestic fellow-parishioner. 
Let it not be supposed that Holt is the only place in this county 
: _where great elms are to be found. Go where you will, in valley 
bi or bourne, there you find them, and, probably enough, many larger 
_ and finer even than that “Anak” just described. In Spye Park fine 
Specimens of the common elm may be found, from eighty to a 
hundred feet high, with a circumference of fourteen or fifteen feet, 
at three or four feet from the ground, and with branches extending 
forty or fifty feet from the trunk :—clear, straight, sound, hand- 
some trees. Also some remarkable old Wych Elms: one which. 
stood near the stables,—for years a mere wreck, and now with 
scarcely more than a stump remaining—had a trunk of great cir- 
ecumference, probably forty feet or more. Another fine old tree is 
remarkable for having, among others, one particularly long branch 
which sweeps down to the ground where it has taken root in several 
places, and rising up again, has attained a length of twenty one yards 
from the stem. Then there is a very old tree, quite hollow, with 
an opening on one side large enough to admit a cow; a circumstance 
_ which did actually occur some years ago; the beast having walked 
in, turned partly round, stuck fast, and failing in her attempts to 
