Age of Oak Tree 61 



poetic licence with which we accept the authority of Dryden 

 on the oak's stages in life : 



" Three centuries he grows, and three he stays 

 Supreme in state, and in three more decays." 



The result was even more disappointing than expected, for 

 many of the trees clothing these rugged slopes, though not 

 of remarkable scantling, are yet large limbed and of very 

 hoary aspect. In one such situation the largest tree cut 

 girthed a little more than 6 feet, at 3 feet from its base, 

 and disclosed about 120 rings. The timber was of excellent 

 quality, while about half an inch of sap-wood showed the 

 tree to have been still in its full vigour. This tree had 

 stood upon its own root, in one of the many similar, and 

 apparently " natural " woods ; a large number of its neigh- 

 bours were growing from old stools, and one or two of the 

 largest of these cut down, though of less than half the 

 dimensions of the other, yet closely approached it in the 

 number of rings. These hillside trees showed, in the 

 remarkably symmetrical arrangement of their rings, a very 

 even rate of addition to the thickness of the trunk, any 

 variation in width of ring being quite exceptional, and in 

 this respect they differed considerably from some oaks I had 

 examined a few months previously, and which had grown 

 upon deeper and more level ground by the side of Bala 

 Lake. The latter, as might have been expected from their 

 situation, greatly exceeded the other trees in point of size, 

 girthing on an average rather over 12 feet at 3 feet from 

 the ground, and containing 100 feet or thereabouts of 

 excellent timber. They showed from about 140 to 150 

 rings of growth, but these all indicated a rate of annual 

 increase, when the trees were from 40 to 60 years old, of 

 nearly, or in some cases quite, double that put on at any 

 other period of the tree's existence. A large alder, which 

 had stood on a wet place near the oaks, showed about 60 

 rings, and the colour and quality of its timber bore eloquent 

 testimony to its liking for the situation in which it had 

 grown. 



Dolgelly signifies literally " The meadow of the hazels," 



