Fagus 



21 



care from three positions by Mr. Wallis (Plate 3), and as carefully measured by Sir 

 Hugh Beevor and myself in Sept. 1903. We made it as nearly as possible to be 135 

 feet high (certainly over 1 30), and this is the greatest height I know any deciduous 

 tree, except the elm, to have attained in Great Britain. Its girth was 12 feet 

 3 inches, and its bole straight and branchless for about 80 feet, so that its contents 

 must be about 400 feet to the first limb.^ Other extraordinary beeches at Ashridge 

 are figured. Plate 4 is an illustration of natural inarching of a very peculiar 

 type : the larger tree is 1 7 feet 6 inches in girth, the smaller, 4 feet 9 inches, 

 and the connecting branch 12 feet long. It passes into the other tree without 

 any signs to indicate how the inarching took place, and might almost have been 

 a root carried up by the younger tree from the ground, as it has no buds or 

 twigs on it. There are several beeches at Ashridge with very large and curious 

 bosses on the trunk ; one of these (Plate 5) at the base measured 21 feet over the 

 boss, another had a large burr growing out of the side of a straight, clean, healthy 

 tree at 40 feet from the ground. Such burrs are formed on the trunks of healthy as 

 well as of diseased beeches, but I am not sure whether they ever have their origin in 

 injuries produced by insects, birds, or other extraneous causes. Sometimes they 

 have a horny or almost coral-like growth. Such burrs when cut through have an 

 ornamental grain, which might be used for veneers when sufficiently compact and 

 solid, but are left to rot on the ground by timber merchants, who as a rule place no 

 value on such products. 



In some parts of this park the beeches show a remarkably wide -spreading 

 network of snake-like roots on the surface, which, though not uncommon in this tree 

 when growing on shallow soil, are here unusually well developed. There is a 

 remarkable beech clump to the east of the house containing 26 trees in a circle of 

 197 paces (11 of them grow in a circle of 78 paces), of which every tree is large, 

 clean, and straight. The largest of them is about 125, perhaps 130, feet high, and 

 13 feet 10 inches in girth, and the average contents of the trees probably over 

 200 feet. I do not think I have ever seen in England such a large quantity of 

 timber on so small an area. 



But though it is doubtful whether any place in England can boast so many 

 perfect beech trees as Ashridge, this park contains also some of the finest limes, 

 the largest horse-chestnuts, and the most thriving and bulky chestnuts ; and in a 

 wood not far off is an ash which is much the best-grown tree of its species, if not 

 the largest, that I have seen in England. All things considered, I doubt whether 

 there is a more interesting and beautiful type of an English park than Ashridge, for 

 though it contains few exotic trees, and no conifers except some Scotch pines, it 

 has a magnificent herd of red, of Japanese, and of fallow deer, as well as flocks 

 of St. Kilda sheep and of white Angora goats. 



At Rotherfield Park, Hants, there is an immense pollard beech, of which I have 

 a photograph kindly sent me by the owner, Mr. A. E. Scott, who gives its girth as 

 28 feet 3 inches at the narrowest point, 3 feet from the ground. 



' According to Loudon, iii. 1977, this tree was in 1844 no feet high, 10 feet in girth at 2 feet, and 74 feet to the 

 first branch. 



