TURKEY, OR MOSSY-CUPPED OAK. 293 



during the first twenty years of its growth of more than 

 two feet, and at Twizell we have young trees which, 

 at eighteen and twenty years old, have attained a height 

 of thirty and thirty-five feet, and a circumference of two 

 feet six inches at one foot from the ground. At Stanwick, 

 Yorkshire, the seat of Lord Prudhoe, there is a beautiful 

 Cerris which measures upwards of eleven feet in circum- 

 ference. As might be expected, from its more rapid 

 growth, the duration of the Cerris falls far short of that 

 of the Oak, and it is accounted to be at its prime, or 

 at the fittest age for felling, when sixty or seventy years 

 old. After this period the timber is apt to get shaky, 

 and then begins to decay at the heart. 



Hitherto the quality of the British grown Cerris has 

 been but seldom tested, few trees having yet attained 

 sufficient age or dimensions for felling. We have, how- 

 ever, an account of two cut down at East Hampstead, 

 in Berkshire, a seat belonging to the Marquis of Down- 

 shire, the wood of which was made into doors for some 

 of the principal apartments. Mr. Atkinson,* who gives 

 the account, pronounces the grain to be much finer than 

 that of British Oak, also that it takes a better polish, 

 and is more beautiful than any other Oak wood he had 

 ever seen ; the same gentleman, in testing its properties 

 with those of the common Oak, found, that though not 

 quite so strong, it was as tough as native Oak, although 

 the specimen submitted to trial was not of the best quality, 

 but rather cross-grained ; and he adds, " for all ornamental 

 purposes where the wood has to be polished it is superior, 

 and must be a profitable tree to plant, as it grows much 

 quicker than our common Oak, and I have seen it thrive 

 rapidly in poor land.' 11 



* " Hort. Trans. 1 ' second series, vol. i, p. 338. 



