276 SYLVAN WINTER. 



Of enormous Elms, Gilpin gives one instance. 

 He says, ' There is not. perhaps in all this 

 country such an Elm as was in the year 1674 cut 

 down in the park of Sir Walter Bagot, in Stafford- 

 shire. The particulars recorded in the family are 

 that two men were five days in felling it ; it measured 

 forty yards to the top in length; the stool was fifteen 

 yards two feet in circumference ; fourteen loads 

 were broken in the fall ; forty-eight loads were 

 contained in the top ; there were made out of it 

 eighty pair of naves for wheels, and 8660 feet of 

 boards and planks. It cost, at a time when 

 labour was much lower rated than it is now' 

 (Gilpin was writing this in 1781), ' 101. 17 s. for 

 sawing. The whole substance was computed to 

 weigh ninety-seven tons.' * 



Evelyn, speaking of famous trees, said, To 

 go no further than the parish of Ebbsham in 

 Surrey, belonging to my brother, Richard Evelin, 

 Esquire, there are Elms now standing in good 

 numbers, which will bear almost three foot square 

 for more than forty foot in height. Mine own 

 hands measured a table, more than once, of about 

 * 'Forest Scenery,' pages 159-60. 



