120 LETTERS TO MARCO xvm 



I do not know whether you ever heard of 

 the patriotic movement our grandfathers made 

 in the matter of planting walnut trees. Most 

 of the large walnut trees about here are of 

 the same size and age, and were planted about 

 the time of the battle of Waterloo. It appears 

 that there had been great destruction amongst 

 these trees throughout the southern counties 

 for the sake of their wood for gun-stocks, so 

 our fathers planted these trees to supply the 

 deficiencies. I had this from a countryman 

 who remembered his father telling him of it, 

 a prop os of a tree, at Aston Tyrold, which is 

 now just such a one as my large tree. The 

 walnut is not a very long-lived tree, judging 

 from this ; I should say few live much over a 

 hundred years. I know a row of these trees 

 near the Swan at Shillingford, which the last 

 landlord there told me he had himself planted, 

 that are now forty or forty-five years old ; they 

 are fine large trees, but not as large and grand 

 as the Waterloo heroes that abound in the 

 Berkshire villages. 



