274 CORRESPONDENCE OF GILBERT WHITE 



My tortoise was very backward this year in preparing his 

 Hybernaculum ; & did not retire till towards the beginning 

 of Decem r . The late great snow hardly reached us, & was 

 gone at once. 



LETTER X. 



MARSHAM TO WHITE. 



Stratton, Feb. 12, 1792. 



DEAR SIR, 



MANY thanks are due to you for your very pleasing & instruct- 

 ing letter of the 19 th of Dec 1 ' but procrastination has prevented 

 your receiving them. This failing which afflicted me in my 

 younger days, increases in set. 85 ; & as i have nothing worth 

 communicating to you, it might safely have continued longer. 

 Our Winter began early, & was uncommonly severe before 

 Xmass. From the 8 of Dec r , to the 23 d was constant frost, 

 with little snow. The 12 th was the coldest, viz. near 10 

 below friezing point. We here, like you in Hampshire, had 

 but little snow. 1 had a Woodcock in my house the first of 

 October. 



Your new correspondent's Elm seems to me extraordinary. 

 You know the keel of a first-rate ship of War is 147 feet 

 long. This cannot be less than 8 feet round. As Elm is 

 generally slender in proportion to the height, Mr. Chiswell's 

 Elm should be at least 200 feet high : viz. near double the 

 height of the tall Trees of this Island ; credat &c. The tallest 

 Elms i can recollect are by S* John's Coll. Camb. which i 

 should think are not much above 100 feet. You know i traced 

 Mr. Archer's Oakes near Downton, 'till they contracted into 

 sticks. You may remember, that D r Hunter in his notes in 

 his edition of Evelyn's Silva, says that an hundred of S r Row- 

 land Wynn's Oakes sold for 5000 *. This i investigated, by 



* [Hunter (op. cit. ii. p. 288), however, says fifty tons for 2500. 

 A.N.] 



