302 SVLVAN WINTER. 



feet, according to Sir T. D. Lauder; and the 

 famous Cowtliorpe Oak measured, according to 

 the same authority, in 1834, at three feet from 

 the ground, forty-eight feet ! It is still standing, 

 but the Rev. Thomas White, of Cowthorpe Rec- 

 tory, wrote to us, in 1879, that the venerable tree 

 had failed very much since he had been minister 

 at Cowthorpe, a period of thirty-five years. He 

 added : 'A year or two ago a w^ood-ranger measured 

 its present main branch, and found it contained 

 two and a half tons of wood. It is believed to be 

 1650 years old ! ' 



Of large specimens of the Ash mentioned by 

 Sir T. D. Lauder, the following examples may be 

 quoted. One at Inch Merin, in Loch Lomond, 

 Dumbartonshire, measured, in 1784, twenty feet 

 eight inches in girth, and another at the same 

 place, twenty-eight feet five inches. Both were 

 hollow, and dead and living timber were curiously 

 mixed. A great Ash at Oarnoch, Stirlingshire, 

 seen by Sir T. D. Lauder, was then ninety feet 

 high, 'thirty-one feet in girth at the ground, 

 nineteen feet three inches at five feet from the 

 ground, and twenty-one feet six inches when 



