284 THE BEECH. 
pheasant, partridge, ete. On the Continent, where the nuts 
attain to the greatest maturity, they are used in the manu- 
facture of oil, which is said to be little inferior to that of the 
olive, and are esteemed both for food and light. 
Although the vigour of the tree rarely extends beyond 150 
years, yet it sometimes exists to a very great age. Of the 
recorded trees of England, the old beech in Windsor Park 
appears conspicuous; its girth is stated to be 36 feet, and it is 
said to have existed before the Norman Conquest. It is still 
in life, but has become a ruin. The celebrated beech at 
Woburn Abbey, commonly known as “ Pontey’s Beech,” in 
1837 was 100 feet high, with a clear trunk of fifty feet in 
height, and containing 317 cubical feet of timber, exclusive 
of that of the top. During the eight years preceding the 
above date this beech only produced in its trunk five cubical 
feet of timber, while a silver fir in the park at Woburn 114 
feet high, and containing 350 cubical feet, exclusive of the 
head, added to its trunk eleven cubical feet of timber in the 
same period, thus showing a much greater rapidity of growth 
in the silver fir than in the beech at an advanced age. Castle 
Howard is celebrated for its beech trees, the highest is re- 
corded at 110 feet, length of clear bole 70 feet, cubical con- 
tents 940 feet, diameter of head 96 feet. The finest trees I 
have seen in England stand at Studly Park, Yorkshire; they 
are about 100 feet high. Some of these trees are very 
remarkable : their trunks are short, but having ample space, 
they display a wonderful ramification of branches and bulk 
of top. 
In Scotland, Morayshire is celebrated for fine specimens of 
the tree; that at Earlsmill measures about sixty feet high, 
with a trunk sixteen feet in circumference at four feet from 
the ground. Dalvey, Grange Hall, and Burgie Castle are 
also noted for many trees of great magnitude. 
F. s. purpurea.—The purple beech is a well-known orna- 
mental tree, a native of Germany, where it was discovered in 
a wood between the middle and the end of last century. 
From this tree all the purple beeches in Europe have been 
