OF WYRE FOREST. 197 
ley, in Worcestershire. This tree [the example in Wyre Forest] 
is forty-five feet high, and the diameter of its trunk, at one foot 
from the ground, is one foot nine inches, and that of the head is 
twenty-six feet. 
“The wood is the hardest and the heaviest of all the indigen- 
ous woods of Europe, is of a reddish tinge, a fine grain, and sus- 
ceptible of a very high polish, but requires to be thoroughly 
seasoned, for it is liable to split. It is much prized for making 
cogs to wheels, rollers, cylinders, blocks and pulleys, etc. In 
France it is preferred to all kinds of wood for making the screws 
to wine-presses. 
“The fruit is not highly prized, and is more frequently eaten 
by the poor than by the rich. Where it abounds, there is a 
proverb which proves the estimation in which it is held; ‘Ils ne 
mangent que de cormes’ (they eat only sorbs), is employed to 
designate persons in the last stage of destitution and misery. 
Perry is manufactured from it in Brittany, which, though said 
to be excellent, has an unpleasant smell.” 
Loudon states that an aged and very large Sorb was (in 1829?) 
in a field adjoming the Brompton Park Nursery, where it was 
planted by London and Wise, tls field then forming part of the 
nursery ; it was then forty feet high and eighteen inches in dia- 
meter. It was also at Syon House and at Kew, in the Hammer- 
smith Nursery, and Melbury Park, in Dorset, where was a tree 
estimated to be two hundred years old, eighty-two feet high, and 
three feet four inches in diameter. 
There is one reported from Hagley, in the same county as 
Wyre Forest, which had then been planted nine years, and was 
eighteen feet high. 
There is one at Gordon Castle, Banffshire. Several others are 
enumerated from Scotland and Ireland. 
In Loudon’s account it is stated that “the only plants of this 
species in its uncultivated state are in Wyre Forest and in the 
Arboretum at Milford.” Trees are not wild in an arboretum, 
though they are so in a forest. There are however said to be 
traces of buildings near the station of the Whitty Pear, in Wyre 
Forest, which in some degree invalidate its claims to be consi- 
dered as the natural growth of this locality. 
When we were at Bewdley we heard the following anecdote, 
which confirms what our correspondent, Mr. Gissing, reports as 
