400 TRANSACTIONS AND TROCP^EDINGS OF TIIK [Sess. Lxvii. 



Jacob George Strutt, who was a landscape painter, 

 travelled throughout England and Scotland during 1822 

 and several years following, sketching and painting forest 

 trees distinguished for their size and antiquity. He left us 

 fifty beautiful and faithful pictures, as memorials of grand 

 trees scattered all over our island. 



J. C. Loudon published the " Arboretum Britannicum " in 

 1838. It is a work of eight volumes, consisting of prints 

 and letter-press, illustrative of all the information which 

 he could gather about trees. Ten thousand pounds sterling 

 was the cost of the production, and the sale was so slow 

 that all Loudon was worth had to be pledged to the 

 publishers for payment. It is said, tHe work and anxiety 

 connected with it shortened the life of the author. How 

 very often is scientific enterprise, not only unremunerative, 

 but attended with disastrous loss. 



Charles Empson published a pamphlet on the Cowthorpe 

 Oak in 1842. He, in conjunction with four others, visited 

 the tree, and took minute particulars and measurements in 

 January of the same year. These measurements, which 

 seem to have been taken with extreme care, along with a 

 truthful print (which accompanies his pamphlet), form an 

 important link in the history of the oak from the time of 

 Dr. Hunter to the present. Who Empson was it is im- 

 possible to tell now, or anything more about him than that 

 his name will always be remembered in any really worthy 

 account of the venerable tree. 



In 1893, or fifty-one years after Empson, the investiga- 

 tions, measurements, photographs, etc., were made, which 

 are the subject matter of this paper. Four times during 

 that year the Cowthorpe Oak was visited — in January, 

 April, June, and October — with a view of seeing the tree 

 under the aspects of the various seasons, and collecting at 

 each time as much local information as possible. Besides, 

 pilgrimages have been made to the tree once or twice in 

 each year since. 



Cowthorpe is a small village about four miles north-east 

 of Wetherby. It is within a bend of the river Nidd. The 

 church there was built in 1458, and is regarded with much 

 interest. The old oak is near the church, and again the 

 proximity of the two suggests it as probable that the tree 



