104 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
a regiment of men. The Greendale Oak of Welbeck 
probably takes the priority in age, and is supposed to be 
1,500 years old. Herne’s Oak, where the wood goblin 
had his haunts and about which “the fairies danced with 
twenty glow worms for their lamps,” when they played 
the game against Falstaff for his evil desire, was blown 
down a few yearsago. There have been good Rhecuses 
to look after some of these trees, who have banded and 
riveted and propped them up to stay them against decay 
and storm. England may well hold in high esteem her 
trees, especially her noble oaks, as she is indebted to 
them in a large degree for her supremacy on the sea. 
As the wealth of a country increases, people have 
more leisure for the cultivation and enjoyment of xs- 
thetic tastes, and the old homesteads with their wooded 
surroundings become dearer in the eyes of each succes- 
sive generation, and many an old oak or maple or elm 
on the premises is looked upon with the same reverence 
as the family monument in the burying ground. This 
feeling is becoming more general too in communities, 
especially in our eastern cities. With what scrupulous. 
care the people of Boston guard the old trees on the 
commons! 
When the old Charter Oak at Hartford was blown 
down a few years since, many of the inhabitants of the 
place were really in mourning, and the band, wearing 
badges of grief, marched through the city, and during 
the afternoon played sad music over the prostrate old 
weather-beaten land-mark of the past. 
