212 &!K j&alccg afe. 



in the Oak of Salcey, it may be seen that both sheep and 

 cattle have retired thither. 



At one season of the year the oak is beat upon by 

 heavy rain, and loud winds howl furiously around its 

 aged head ; at another it is white with snow, or the 

 hoar frost of winter settles on it. At length green 

 leaves peep forth from among the fissures of the trunk 

 and boughs, and the sapling trees are green also. 



There is little else to record in connexion with this 

 aged tree. Peasants may have sheltered their flocks for 

 ages beneath its canopy of branches, when those branches 

 were full of sap, and when stately trees stood round in 

 all their greatness, where now only a grassy area meets 

 the eye. But no ancient ruins are to be seen by him who 

 climbs the trunk, nor yet the traces of any city which 

 might have invited the aggressions of an enemy. We 

 conjecture, therefore, that a forest, with breaks of lawn and 

 thicket, and perhaps a common on which the peasant built 

 his hut, and the homestead arose in peaceful times, 

 might have extended round the oak of Salcey. The 

 ground on which we tread presents sufficient indications 

 that such has been the case. The millfoil-yarrow, the 

 wild camomile, the gravel birdweed, and stonebasil, 

 ancient tenants of the soil, which grow only in the 

 purest air of heaven, on waste land and stony banks, are 

 seen in company with the wild bluebell and the crested 

 cowwheat, with which the mower filleth not his hand, 

 nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. 



