424 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



Keicot, under tlie shade of wliich four thousand 

 three hundred and seventy-four men had suffi- 

 cient room to stand. The Boddington oak, in 

 the Vale of Gloucester, was fifty-four feet in cir- 

 cumference at the base. The larger arms and 

 branches were gone in 1783; and the hollow ca- 

 vity was sixteen feet in its largest diameter, with 

 the top formed into a regular dome ; while the 

 yoimg twigs on the decayed top had small leaves 

 about the size of those of the hawthorn, and an 

 abundant crop of acorns. The hollow had a 

 door and one window; and little labour might 

 have converted the tree into a commodious and 

 rather a spacious room. The Fairlop oak in 

 Essex, though inferior in dimensions to the last 

 mentioned, was a tree of immense size, being be- 

 tween six and seven feet in diameter at three 

 feet from the ground. Damory's oak in Dorset- 

 shire was one of the largest oaks of which mention 

 is made. Its circumference was sixty-eight feet ; 

 and tlie cavity of it, which was sixteen feet long 

 and twenty feet high, was, about the time of the 

 Commonwealth, used by an old man for the en- 

 tertainment of travellers; as an ale-house. The 

 dreadful storm in the third year of last century 

 shattered this majestic tree; and in 1765 the last 

 vestiges of it were sold as firewood. An immense 

 oak was dug out of Hatfield bog. It was a hun- 

 dred and twenty feet in length, twelve in dia- 

 meter at the base, ten in the middle, and six at 

 the smaller end where broken off. 



Dr Hunter, in his notes to Evelyn's Sylva, 

 thus describes the great Cowthorpe oak, near 

 Wetheriiy, in Yorkshire, as it stood in 1776 : 

 " The dimensions are almost incredible. With- 

 in three feet of the surface it measures sixteen 

 yards, and close by the ground twenty-six yards, 

 or seventy-eight feet. Its height in its present 

 luinous state is almost eighty-five feet, and its 

 principal limb extends sixteen yards from the 

 bole. Throughout the whole tree the foliage is 

 extremely thin, so that the anatomy of the an- 

 cient branches may he distinctly seen in the 

 height of summer. When compared to this, 

 all other trees are but children of the forest." 

 In 1829 it is again described thus by the Rev. 

 Thomas Jessop : " The Cowthorpe oak is still 

 in existence, though very much decayed. At 

 present it abounds with foliage and acorns ; the 

 latter have long stalks, the leaves short ones. 

 The dimensions are as follow : Height forty-five 

 feet ; circumference, close to the gi-ound, not in- 

 cluding the angles, sixty feet, at one yard high 

 forty-five feet; extent of principal branch fifty 

 feet, being an increase of two feet in about half 

 a centul•\^ I am inclined to think that the ori- 

 ginal dimensions were those given in the Sylva. 

 The oldest persons in the neighbourhood speak 

 of the tree as having been once much higher ; 

 and were the angles included in the measure- 

 ment, which project from the lower trunk, the 



circumference might be made out twenty-six 

 yards. It is said by the inhabitants of the vil- 

 lage, that seventy persons at one time got within 

 the hollow of the trunk; but on inquiring, 1 

 found many of these were children; and as tho 

 tree is hollow throughout to the top, I suppose 

 they sat on each others' shoulders ; yet, without 

 exaggeration, I believe the hollow capable of 

 containing fort}' men." * 



The Greendale oak, in Nottinghamshire, still 

 remains a curious monument of antiquity. In 

 1724 a road-way was cut through its venerable 

 trunk higher than the entrance to Westminster 

 Abbey, and sufficient!}* capacious to pei-mit a 

 carriage and four horses to pass through it. The 

 circumference of the trunk above the arch is 

 thirty-five feetf the height of the arch ten feet, 

 and the circumference about the middle upwards 

 of six feet. 



Some oaks have been as celebrated for being 

 the records of historical events, as others have 

 been for their magnitude, although a part of the 

 celebrity may no doubt be fabulous. Not a hun- 

 dred years ago, the oak in the New Forest, against 

 which the arrow of Sir William Tyrrel glanced 

 before it killed William Rufus, is said to have 

 been standing, though in such a state of decay, 

 that Lord Delaware erected a monument to in- 

 dicate the spot. The Royal Oak at Boscobell, 

 in which Charles the Second concealed himself 

 after the defeat at Worcester, has disappeared ; 

 and though several trees were raised fi-om its 

 acorns, the race seems now to be lost to vege- 

 table history. An oak of still more venerable 

 pretensions now stands, or lately stood, at Tor- 

 wood Wood, in Stirlingshire, under the shadow 

 of which the Scottish patriot Wallace is reported 

 to have convened his followers, and impressed 

 upon them not only the necessity of delivering 

 their country from the thraldom of Edward, but 

 their power of doing it, if they were so deter- 

 mined. Gilpin mentions one more ancient even 

 than this — Alfred's oak at Oxford, which was a 

 sapling when that great monarch founded the 

 university. This cannot, of course, he impli- 

 citly credited; but still the very mention of such 

 things proves, that the oak can reach an age 

 several times exceeding that of the longest lived 

 of the human race. 



Oaks are generally raised in quantities to- 

 gether, forming woods, either sown by the ope- 

 rations of nature, or planted by art. The plants 

 are raised from seed, and either allowed to grow 

 up in the spots where they have originally sprung, 

 or they are first reared in nurseries, and then 

 transplanted. Some diversity of opinion exists 

 as to which of these methods is the best, although 

 it is generally allowed that the best oak wood is 



* Strutt's Svlva Britannioa. 



