Common Oak 323 



oak, about 50 feet high and 28 feet 9 inches in girth, and though all the veterans are 

 long past their prime, there are still healthy growing oaks at Welbeck on the south 

 side of the road to Norton, of which I measured one with a butt 32 feet high and 

 19 feet in girth, which Mr. Michie, the forester, considered would contain 500 feet 

 in the butt alone. Such oaks have actually been cut and sold here in recent times ; 

 and I have a photograph, given me by Mr. G. Miles of Stamford, of a tree which 

 he bought at auction for ^40, and whose trunk measured 38 feet 6 inches long 

 by 431^ inches quarter-girth equal to 511 feet 8 inches. It was so heavy that the 

 weight on the wheels of the timber carriage broke through the road, and when 

 brought to the station after much risk and trouble, the railway company refused to 

 take it to Peterborough except on a special train by itself 



In Rockingham Park, Northants, the seat of the Rev. Wentworth Watson, there 

 are a number of wonderful oaks, many of which are brown, and I had the oppor- 

 tunity, through the kindness of Mr. C. Richardson of Stamford, of seeing several 

 of these felled in September 1903. He told me that, in the whole course of his 

 long experience, he had never seen so many fine brown oaks together as these. 

 The park lies high, on land which looks like oolitic limestone, the rock in some 

 places coming near the surface ; but where these oaks grow there is a good depth of 

 loamy soil. Some of the trees which I saw lying were more or less hollow, and 

 required no saw to bring them down. I was anxious to photograph one in the act 

 of falling, and as the fellers were at work on one of the best, I asked them to let me 

 know how long it would take ; the roots only being then cut all round the tree. I 

 expected that some hours would be required, but before the camera was fixed to 

 take the tree as it stood, they suddenly called out, " stand clear," and down it came. 



Plate 96 shows what the roots of these brown oaks are usually like, but 

 if there is a foot or two of sound wood in the lower part, and the brown colour 

 extends a good way up the trunk, they are still very valuable. I asked the 

 fellers if they could tell a brown oak standing without boring it, and they said they 

 could make a good guess at the colour, though they could not be sure. Probably 

 long experience in a district where brown oak seems to be commoner than 

 elsewhere, is the only guide, if there is one ; but stories are told of men going in the 

 night to bore such trees with an auger before trying to buy them, in the hopes of 

 getting a bargain. From a statement sent me by Mr. Richardson, it appears that 

 twenty-six of these trees were sold for ;^iioo, five of them for ;ificx) each, and 

 contained about 8030 feet, all measured over bark, and nothing allowed for defects. 



The best of this lot were eventually sold to Messrs. J. T. Williams 

 of New York, and afterwards bought by the Pullman Company at a very high 

 price. Mr. Richard Dean, of that Company, informs me that he considered the 

 wood superior to any that they had previously used, and was good enough to send 

 me some samples of the veneer made from them, which has been used in decorating 

 their palace railway cars. The largest of these specimens measures 6 feet i inch 

 by 2 feet 8 inches without a flaw, and is throughout of a uniform chestnut-brown 

 colour, mottled with silvery patches, formed by the medullary rays, showing that it 

 has been cut from a quartered plank. 



