Forest Trees. 159 



The subject of Forest-trees brings us to a 

 thought of those venerable contemporaries of 

 so many generations, some of the ancient 

 tenants of our parks and chases, which have 

 seen race supplant race, dynasty succeed to 

 dynasty ; veterans which form a link almost 

 between the Anglo-Saxons and ourselves. If 

 the Talking Oak of Tennyson had been of this 

 group, what might it not have told us of our 

 national story beyond the possibilities of pen 

 and ink ! I refer with much pleasure to the 

 paper by Mr. Brailsford " On Some Ancient 

 Trees," in the tenth volume of the Antiquary. 



Mr. Joseph Lucas, in his valuable Studies 

 in Nidderdale, remarks : 



" Nidderdale and its moors have formerly been 

 covered by an extensive forest. Many trees lie buried 

 in the peat upon the moors. In the thousands of 

 sections made by little water-courses the birch appears 

 almost everywhere predominant. Hazel, ' sealh 

 [sallow],' thorn, oaks, etc., also occur; but the birch 

 must have formed a thick and almost universal forest 

 by itself, such as may be seen on the west coast of 

 Norway at the present day. " 



This graceful tree is extraordinarily hardy. 

 Among the Alps it flourishes in rocky ground 



