3i6 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



grove of limes which I shall describe later, in a position which makes it difficult to 

 photograph. This tree measures about lOO feet high by 23 feet in girth, and has 

 a fine clean bole of 40 feet. It contains, according to Mr. A. C. Forbes's estimate, 

 about 950 feet of timber. 



The finest oak I have seen in Devonshire is in the park of the Hon. Mark 

 Rolle at Bicton, a place long celebrated for its arboretum and for its avenue of 

 Araucarias, which I have elsewhere described. It measures about 78 feet high by 

 24 feet 8 inches girth at 3 feet, and has a spread of branches of 103 feet in diameter. 

 There are some fine but not extraordinary oaks at Powderham Castle and at 

 Poltimore in the same county. 



Near Mottisfont Abbey, Hants, there is a very thick but short pollard oak on the 

 banks of the Test, of which a photograph, by Mr. J. Bailey, Southampton, has been 

 kindly sent me by Mrs. Meinertzhagen, who long resided at Mottisfont. It measures 32 

 feet in girth and spreads considerably, and, though evidently of very great age, is full 

 of healthy foliage. It must have been frequently flooded, as it stands close to the river. 



Near Bramley, Hants, by the road leading to " The Vine," is an oak, which 

 Henry measured in 1905, 100 feet by 22 feet, and which seems quite sound. 

 There are, so far as I know, no oaks now living in the New Forest which are 

 remarkable for their size as compared with the trees I have mentioned. 



Of the historical parks of England I know none which contains so many fine 

 oaks as Bagot's Park, near Rugeley, Staffordshire. This must be one of the 

 oldest parks in England, for though Lord Bagot cannot tell me the exact date 

 of its enclosure, he states that it belonged to his family long before 1367, and that 

 in the "Peregrinations of Dr. Boarde, temp. Henry VIII.," printed at the end 

 of Hearne's Benedictus Abba, p. 795, " Baggotte's Park" is mentioned in the list 

 of Staffordshire parks. It is generally said to contain 1500 acres within the pale, 

 but varies from time to time, as land has been added in some places and taken out 

 in others for planting, to be again restored when the woods are grown. 



This practice seems to be well worthy of more general adoption, for no one who 

 is acquainted with the condition of the trees in many of our oldest parks can have 

 failed to notice, that they are as a rule going back ; and as trees cannot be successfully 

 raised to a great height if deer are not excluded— unless enclosures of considerable 

 size are made about once in a generation, in which trees can be properly drawn up to 

 a sufficient height, before they are thinned and the deer admitted— the time must come, 

 and in some cases already has come, when nothing but wrecks are left, and the singly 

 planted trees, though protected by iron or wooden guards at great cost, are a mere 

 mockery of their predecessors. 



The soil in Bagot's Park is poor and cold, being a moist gravelly loam upon a 

 clay or marl bottom, and Lord Bagot says it is not worth los. per acre at the present 

 time. It affords, however, an excellent proof of the fact that land which is not 

 valuable from an agricultural point of view, may often be of great value for 

 planting. The woods extend over many hundred acres and consist almost wholly 

 of oak, mostly, I believe, of the pedunculate variety. Many of the trees are of 

 great age, being mentioned by Dr. Plot in 1686 as full-grown timber. 



