Notes Westfelton, Whittinghame 257 



over 20 feet in circumference, must be a far older 

 tree than ' Adam ' or * Eve,' which cannot have 

 been planted much over two hundred years. 



Westfelton, near Shrewsbury. - - ' A yew of 

 seventy years old,' says Bowman, 'measured 5 

 feet i inch in girth at 5 feet from the ground.' Mr. 

 Dovaston 1 states that it was planted 'about sixty 

 years ago ' by his father, on the edge of a deep 

 well which he had dug. ' The yew grew into a 

 tree of extraordinary and striking beauty ; spread- 

 ing horizontally all round to the diameter of 56 feet 

 (in 1836), with a single aspiring leader to a great 

 height.' Mr. Bowman's estimate and measurement 

 yield 21. inches of diameter in seventy years, or 

 i foot in forty years. Mr. Dovaston's measure- 

 ment was 5 feet i inch in sixty years, which gives 

 exactly the same ratio of increase. In 1879 Sir R. 

 Christison ascertained that it had grown to 94 inches 

 in girth at the same level, or 3 1 '4 inches of diameter, 

 ' or at the rate of an inch radius in eight years, and 

 during its whole life of 1 1 2 years its average rate 

 has been an inch in 7^ years.' 'Though a male 

 tree, it has one entire branch self-productive and 

 exuberantly profuse in female berries, full, red, rich, 

 and luscious.' 



Whittinghame. This tree, which is n feet in 

 girth at 2 feet above the ground, and 10 feet at 

 5 feet, has a bole of 10 feet in length, from which 



1 London's Arboretum, vol. iv. 2082. 

 R 



