APPENDIX C. 



139 



ing. " My ingenious friend, Mr. Marsham, 

 informs me that there is now growing in Holt 

 Forest, near Bentley, a vigorous and healthy 

 oak, which at five feet from the ground, mea- 

 sures thirty-three feet, eight inches, in girt; 

 however, neither this, nor any of the oaks men- 

 tioned by Mr. Evelyn, bear any proportion to 

 one growing at Cowthorpe, near Wetherby, 

 upon an estate belonging to the Right Hon. 

 Lady Stourton. The annexed plate is taken 

 from a drawing made upon the spot in the year 

 1776. The dimensions are almost incredible. 

 Within three feet of the surface it measures six- 

 teen yards in circumference, and close by the 

 ground, twenty-six yards. Its height is about 

 eighty feet, and its principal limb extends six- 

 teen yards from the bole. Throughout the 

 whole tree, the foliage is extremely thin, so that 

 the anatomy of the ancient branches may be 

 distinctly seen in the height of summer."* 



If we may descend from the lordly oak to s'o 

 humble a plant as a radish, the reader may per- 

 haps be amused by the following notice of an 

 enormous specimen of this vegetable, also men- 

 tioned by Evelyn, in his " Terra. A Philoso- 

 phical Discourse of Earth, relating to the Cul- 

 ture and Improvement of it for Vegetation, and 



* Ibid. p. 197. 



