THE GIRTH-INCREASE OF TREES. 49 
QUERCUS ROBUR. 
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a ANNUAL INCREMENTS. 
4 | Girth Total] Ann, | Sitth 
g at Rae Sarai I carmen uae MRA waa imi Ted i. Dae ih ana | lion senna at 
3 | first Incr.| Av. | 2c, 
s 1888. | 1889. | 1890. | 1891. | 1892. ] 1893. | 1894. | 1895. | 1896. | 1897. 
_— | 
1 {| 5:50 40 40 65 75 70 45 | -50 10 15 | 60 4°45 | 56 {10°15 
2] 8:00 20 30 | °65 80 90 | -90 50 45 5 10 |. 4°70 | °59 | 11°70 
10] 7:95 50 7 95 | 1°05 | 1:20 } 1-00 75 | 1°05 80 | dead.J 8°05 | “89 | 13°90 
The native Oak does not show to much advantage in the 
Edinburgh district, and the specimen put under observation in 
the Garden in the first decade, and that only from 1880 (not in 
the Table), was a short-stemmed spreading tree, on the west 
slope from Inverleith House, that had lost many branches and 
become misshapen. It was by a long way the patriarch of -the 
oaks in the Garden, having attained the respectable girth of 
eight feet. It increased in nineteen years from 95 to 99 inches 
in girth, or at the annual rate of 22, more than, from its appear- 
ance, I should have expected, but it is not desirable to give the 
details, as from the small increments and the rough bark they 
are not reliable. : 
The four young trees Nos. 1, 2,70, and 72, placed under 
observation in 1888, and No. 10, begun in 1893, yielded annual 
rates varying from ‘56 to ‘89, the average of the whole being 
‘66; but if we leave out the three first years when they were 
very young, and the last three, when those that were still eligible 
had, for some unknown reason, begun to fail, the average rises 
to *84, and the annual rate of No. 70, the quickest grower, in its 
six best years, 1890-95, was exactly one inch. 
The best of those is probably a poor rate compared with what 
might be expected in young oaks under more favourable circum- 
stances, for even near Edinburgh, at Craigiehall, a tree, ten feet 
in girth at the beginning of the first decade, yielded a rate of 
0°69 for ten years. 
The aggregate increases of the four first on the list for the 
seven available years 1888-94 were 1°30, 1°85, 3°05, 3°15, 3°95, 
