1774? ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



year 1696; and over the door of the upper room is a label, dedicating it to 

 " Our Lady of Peace." Allonville is about a mile from Yvetot, on the road 

 between Rouen and Havre. 



The following information we have received from our friend, the Abbe 

 Gosier of Rouen. In the first volume of the Archives annuclles de la Nor- 

 mandie, printed at Caen in 1824, there is an article on the oaks of Fournet, 

 in which, after mentioning that several of these oaks were of enormous size, the 

 following particulars are given of some of them : The Goulande Oak near 

 Dourfront is about 30 ft. in circumference. The two oaks of Mayior, in the 

 canton of Calvados, are of very great size. The largest is above 42 ft. in cir- 

 cumference at the surface of the ground, and above 30 ft. in circumference at 

 the height of 6 ft. All these oaks have lost their leading shoots, and have 

 their trunks hollow. The oak called La Cave is a very remarkable tree. It 

 stands in the Forest ofBrothone. The trunk is 26ft. in circumference in its 

 smallest part j it is hollow ; and at a few feet from the base it divides into five 

 large branches or rather trees, which rise to a considerable height. The 

 trunk from which they spring has the appearance of a large goblet ; it is 

 hollow, cup-shaped, covered with bark inside, and nearly always filled with 

 water, which is seldom less than 5 ft. deep. " I visited this tree," says M. 

 Deshayes (who wrote the account which has been sent to us by the Abbe 

 Gosier), " on July 30th, 1825, and, though it was a season of extraordinary 

 drought, I found the water in the tree was 2 ft. 6 in. deep. I visited it some 

 months afterwards, and found the basin full." At Bonnevaux is an oak, in 

 the hollow trunk of which there is a circular table, round which 20 persons 

 have sate to dinner. {Letter from V Abbe Gosier.) 



A large oak in the Forest of Cerisy, known under the name of the Quenesse, 

 at a little distance to the right of the great road to St. Lo, is supposed, by 

 comparing various data, to be 800 or 900 years old. In 1824, it measured 

 36 ft. in circumference just above the soil, and was about 55 ft. high. The 

 trunk is now hollow, and will hold 14 or 15 persons. (Athenceum, Aug. 20. 

 1836.) 



An immense oak was, in May, 1836, felled on the road from Vitre to 

 Fougeres. It was 22 ft. in circumference, had a straight trunk 30 ft. long, and 

 weighed 24 tons. Ten pair of oxen and twenty horses were required to carry 

 it away. (Galignani.) 



Large Oaks in Germany. The ancient Germans, history informs us, had 

 oak castles. In the hollow of one, we read that a hermit built his cell and 

 chapel ; and of some oaks of almost incredible bulk, which Evelyn says in 

 his time were " lately standing in Westphalia," one was 130ft. high, and re- 

 ported to be 30ft. in diameter; another yielded 100 loads of timber; and a 

 third " served both for a castle and a fort." (Amoen. Quer.) The following 

 extract is from Googe's Four Bookes ofHusbandrie (1586) : " We have at 

 this day an oke in Westphalia, not far from the Castle of Alsenan, which is 

 from the foote to the neerest bowe, one hundred and thirtie foote, and three 

 elles in thickness ; and another, in another place, that, being cutte out, made 

 a hundred waine load. Not farre from this place there grew an other oke of 

 tenne yardes in thicknesse, but not very hie." (p. 101. b.) 



Having now given what may be considered a county biography of cele- 

 brated British oaks, and enumerated a few remarkable foreign ones, we shall 

 next collect together, without reference to locality, the names of a few re- 

 markable for some peculiarity in their trunks or branches ; in their origin ; the 

 trees with which they grow; for the quantity of timber they have produced, 

 or their rate of growth ; and which, for the sake of distinction, may be called 

 the comparative biography of celebrated oaks. 



Oaks remarkable for their Age. " If we consider," says Marshall (Plant, and 

 Rur. On.) '* the quick growth of the chestnut, compared with that of the oak, 

 and, at the same time, the inferior bulk of the trunk of the Tortworth Chestnut 

 to that of the trunk of the Cowthorpe, the Bentley, or the Doddington Oak, 

 may we not venture to infer that the existence of these truly venerable trees 



