AGE OF TREES. 43 



perhaps by many would be passed by unnoticed ; yet it 

 is deserving of some regard, from the vegetable powers 

 that have existed, and still continue in its trunk. The 

 bole, at some very distant period, by accident or design, 

 appears to have lost its leading shoot, and in conse- 

 quence has thrown out several collateral branches : three 

 remain, which have now grown into trees themselve 

 existing in full vigor, and constituting a whole of much 

 beauty. It is a characteristic specimen of an oak, with 

 all the corrugations, twistings, furrows, and irregularities, 

 which this tree with a free growth generally exhibits ; 

 expanding its three vigorous arms to the Sun of Heaven 

 with a pendent, easy dignity, that seems like an enjoy- 

 ment of unrestrained liberty. We have no good criterion 

 to regulate our judgment with regard to the age of trees 

 of considerable antiquity. In young ones the rings of 

 the wood will often afford a reasonable ground for 

 opinion ; but in old trees these marks are absorbed, 

 obscured, or uncertainly formed, so as to be no suffi- 

 cient guide. In particular cases, such as inclosure of 

 waste or other lands, formation of parks and plantations, 

 the times of planting are sufficiently recorded ; but 

 generally speaking, neither oral tradition, nor written 

 testimony, remains to indicate the period when a tree 

 sprang up. This oak, however, from all the signs of age 

 that it retains, must have existed as a sapling at some 

 very distant day, and is the most undoubted relic of 

 antiquity in the vegetable world that we possess. 



The elm, and the beech, in age, frequently present 

 very decided vestiges of a former day ; but the oak of 

 centuries has impressed upon it indelible characters of 

 antiquity, and is a visible vetustum monumentum. The 

 wreathings and contortions of its bark, even its once 

 vigorous, but now sapless limbs, with their bare and 

 bleached summits, stag-headed and erect, maintain a 

 regality of character which perfectly indicates the mon- 

 arch of the forest, and which no other tree assumes. We 

 have many accounts in different authors of the pro- 

 digious size which the oak has attained in England ; 

 but most of the trees, that have arrived at any vast cir- 

 cumference, seem, like this our village oak, to have lost 



