Notes — A nkerwyke 183 



umbrage 74 and 70 feet. The increase of diameter 

 since 1822 is shown by the following Table : — 



Girth at 3 feet from the Ground. 



1822 . . . 27 feet 8 inches. 

 1877 . . . 30 feet 5 inches. 

 1894 ... 30 feet 9 inches. 



From these measurements it appears that in the 

 first fifty-five years since Strutt's measurement, the 

 tree had grown 2>Z inches in girth, or 1 1 inches 

 in diameter. Christison remarks : 'If this rate 

 (i foot of diameter in sixty years) were adopted 

 for that of the whole trunk . . . the tree in 1877 was 

 only 564 years old instead of above a thousand.' 

 ' But,' he says, ' so great a tree cannot be nearly so 

 young ; and the erroneous result arises from the 

 measurements havin^ been taken over the swelling' 

 of the trunk near the spring of its limbs.' 



We have here a striking instance of the danger 

 of making fixed rules for estimating the rate of 

 growth. De Candolle's method is of all others 

 the most fallacious, as I have elsewhere shown, 

 and we find in this tree a good illustration of the 

 variable rates of growth for which the yew is so 

 conspicuous. The last measurement of 1894 shows 

 an increase in girth of only 4 inches in seventeen 

 years, bringing the total increase in seventy-seven 

 years down to ■}^'] inches, or rather more than a 

 foot of diameter in that period, which is not slow 



