Fagus 



19 



Remarkable Trees 



As an instance of the rapid growth of the beech, I will quote from a letter of 

 Robert Marsham of Stratton Strawless, near Norwich, to Gilbert White, dated 

 24th July 1790, in which he says : " I wish I had begun planting with beeches (my 

 favourite trees as well as yours), and I might have seen large trees of my own raising. 

 But I did not begin beeches till 1741, and then by seed ; and my largest is now at 5 

 feet, 6' 3" round, and spreads a circle of + 20 yards diamr. But this has been digged 

 round and washed, etc." In Gilbert White's reply to this letter, dated Selborne, 

 13th August 1790, he says: "I speak from long observation when I assert, that 

 beechen groves to a warm aspect grow one-third faster than those that face to 

 the N. and N.E., and the bark is much more clean and smooth." 



Marsham, replying to White on 31st August (it seems to have been at least fifteen 

 days' post in those days from Norfolk to Hants), says : " Mr. Drake has a charming 

 grove of beech in Buckinghamshire, where the handsomest tree (as I am informed 

 by a friend to be depended on) runs 75 feet clear, and then about 35 feet more in 

 the head. I went on purpose to see it. It is only 6 F. 6 I. round, but straight 

 as possible. Some beeches in my late worthy friend Mr. Naylor's park at Hurst- 

 monceux in Sussex ran taller and much larger, but none so handsome." In a later^ 

 letter he speaks of one being felled here in 1750 which "ran 81 feet before it 

 headed." 



Sir Hugh Beevor informs me that he found it impossible to identify with 

 certainty the trees measured at Stratton Strawless by Marsham, which we shall have 

 occasion to allude to later.^ 



It would be impossible to mention more than a few of the finest beech trees in 

 this country, but the photographs which have been reproduced represent a few of 

 those which I have seen myself 



In Hants there are many fine beeches in the New Forest, of which the wood 

 called Mark Ash contains some of the most picturesque, and is to my eyes one 

 of the most beautiful woods from a naturalist's point of view in England, or even 

 in Europe, though it is, like so many of the fine old woods in the New Forest, 

 deteriorating from causes which are described elsewhere. One of the finest trees 

 here is over 100 feet high and 24 feet in girth, dividing at about 10 feet into six 

 immense erect limbs, and entirely surrounded, as are many of the trees in this wood, 

 by a dense thicket of holly. 



There is another beech in Woodfidley in the New Forest which Mr. Lascelles 

 considers the finest beech in the forest, and of which the measurement as given by 

 him is 120 feet high, 14 feet 6 inches in girth at 5 feet, carrying its girth well up, 

 with an estimated cubic content of 650 feet. 



In Old Burley enclosure is another magnificent beech, rather shut in by other 

 trees, and therefore difficult to measure for height. I estimated it at 1 10 feet high. 

 The girth was 18 feet, dividing at about 25 feet into two main trunks, which carried a 



' Cf. Trans, of the Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. ii. 133-195. 



