18 LAEGE OAKS. 



vast oak,* with a short squat body, and huge horizontal 

 arms, extending almost to the extremity of the area. This 

 venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above 

 them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much 

 resort in summer evenings ; where the former sat in grave 

 debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. 

 Long might it have stood, had not the amazing tempest in 

 1703 overturned it at once, to the infinite regret of the 

 inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed several pounds in 

 setting it in its place again : but all his care could not avail ; 

 the tree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. This 

 oak I mention, to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may 

 arrive ; and planted this tree must certainly have been, as 

 appears from what is known concerning the antiquities of 

 the village. t 



times, to be the scene of recreation for the youths and children of the neigh- 

 bourhood ; and impresses an idea on the mind, that this village, even in Saxon 

 times, could not be the most abject of places, when the inhabitants thought 

 proper to assign so spacious a spot for the sports and amusements of its young 

 people." W. J. 



* Two species of oak only are admitted into the British Flora, quercus 

 robur, and sessiliflora. Several others, however, have been introduced, and 

 grow well ; the quercus robur is, nevertheless, superior to all of them. The 

 other species are said to be more susceptible of the dry rot. W. J. 

 , + The celebrated Cowthorpe oak, upon an estate near Wetherby, belonging 

 to the Right Hon. Lady Stourton, measures, within three feet of the surface, 

 16 yards in circumference, and close by the ground, 26 yards. Its height is 

 about 80 feet, and its principal limb extends 16 yards from the boll. The 

 Greendale oak, at a foot from the ground, is in circumference 33 feet 10 inches. 

 The Shire oak covers nearly 707 square yards; the branches stretching into 

 three counties, York, Nottingham, and Derby. The Fairlop oak in Essex, 

 at a yard from the ground, is 36 feet in circumference. Damory's oak, in 

 Dorsetshire, at the ground, was in circumference 68 feet, and, when decaying, 

 became hollow, forming a cavity capable of containing 20 men. An oak, felled 

 at Withy Park, Shropshire, in 1697, was 9 feet in diameter without the bark. 

 The Baddington oak, in the Vale of Gloucester, was 54 feet in circumference 

 at the base ; and Wallace's oak, in Torwood, in the county of Stirling, must 

 have been at least 11 or 12 feet in diameter. W. J. 



The Galynos oak was one of the largest trees of the kind in England on 

 record. It grew in the county of Monmouth. Five men were each twenty 

 days in stripping and cutting it down ; and a pair of sawyers were constantly 

 employed 138 days in its conversion. The expense alone of doing this was 

 821. The main trunk of the tree was nine feet and a half in diameter. It 

 had been improving for 400 years, as found from the rings in its butt. When 

 standing, it overspread 452 square yards. Its produce was 2426 feet of solid 

 timber, as ascertained from the navy office returns. The bark produced 600 

 pounds. ED. 



