1 882 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



still green. At my suggestion Mr. G. E. Baker, then Bursar of Magdalen College, 

 removed a scrubby tree which stood near it, in order to allow a photograph (Plate 

 395) to be taken soon after by Mr. Foster of Burford. I took great pains 

 to measure it accurately from four different positions, and found its height to be 

 140 ft., and its girth at five feet, 27 ft. I estimated its contents when standing at over 

 2000 cubic feet, but when I showed it later to some of the most experienced judges 

 of timber in the English Arboricultural Society, their estimates were all lower than 

 mine. On 5th April 191 1 this splendid tree was blown down, and on hearing of 

 this I went to Oxford at once with Mr. Foster to photograph and measure it on 

 the ground. I made the total height 142 feet. With the help of my forester, 

 J. Irvine, I made a series of thirty-three measurements of the various pieces and 

 limbs as accurately as possible, Mr. Carter, Bursar of Magdalen, booking them as 

 we measured ; and found that if no allowance was made for bark, which was three 

 to four inches thick on the trunk, or for the hollows caused by decay, the total 

 contents were 2787 feet. Professor Somerville, 1 and Sir W. Schlich, F.R.S., after- 

 wards measured the tree on the ground, and agree that my calculation of its cubic 

 contents is nearly accurate. The timber of this tree was much redder than that 

 of any tree of U. montana which I have ever seen. No suckers were noticed 

 by me, and none have come up since the fall of the tree. I understand that the 

 President and Fellows of Magdalen College have decided to allow the remains to lie 

 undisturbed as a memorial of the fallen giant. 



This tree was so rotten in the interior that the annual rings could not be counted. 

 Judging from its great size, it was probably 200 to 300 years, and cannot be of the 

 same origin as the ordinary Huntingdon elm, if the story of the origin of the latter 

 in 1 750 is correct. The independent origin of this hybrid at various times and in 

 different places is not improbable. 



Another tree, similar in habit and foliage, still survives in the Grove of 

 Magdalen College, and in 1912 measured about 130 ft. in height, and 23 ft. in girth. 



Elsewhere I have seen no old trees except in Hinchingbrooke Park ; but 

 there is a fine specimen 2 in the Fellows' garden of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and 

 another in Victoria Park, Bath. There is at Cambridge, an avenue of Huntingdon 

 elms, known as Brooklands Avenue, which is said to have been planted by Mr. 

 Richard Foster about 1830. (H. J. E.) 



1 Cf. Quart. Journ. Forestry, v. 279, fig. (1911). 



2 Figured in Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxxix. pi. 20 (1910). According to C. W. King, this tree was planted about 

 1 8 14, in the presence of Adam Sedgwick. It is now often called Sedgwick's elm. 



