English Trees. 351 



ENGLISH TREES. 



The parks abound with trees of extraordinary age and size. 

 They are not like trees of our original forests, growing up to 

 a great height, and on account of the crowded state of the 

 neighborhood throwing out but few lateral branches ; but what 

 they want in height they gain in breadth ; and if I may be 

 excused for a hard word, in umbrageousness. I measured one 

 in Lord Bagot's celebrated park in Staffordshire, and, going 

 round the outside of the branches, keeping within droopings of 

 the circuit, was a hundred yards. The circumference of some 

 of the celebrated oaks in the park of the Duke of Portland, 

 which we measured together, when he did me the kindness to 

 accompany me through his grounds, seemed worthy of record. 

 The little Porter Oak measured twenty-seven feet in circum- 

 ference ; the Porter Oak is twenty-nine feet in circumference ; 

 the Seven Sisters, thirty-three feet in circumference. The 

 great Porter Oak was of very large diameter, fifty feet above 

 the ground ; and an opening in the trunk of Green Dale Oak, 

 was at one time large enough to admit the passage of a small 

 carriage through it : by advancing years the open space has 

 become somewhat contracted. These indeed are noble trees, 

 though it must be confessed that they were thrown quite into 

 the shade by the magnificent Buttonwood or Sycamore, of 

 whose trunk I saw a complete section exhibited at Derby, 

 measuring twenty-five feet in diameter, and seventy-five feet 

 in circumference. This was brought from the United States ; 

 and indeed might well be denominated the mammoth of the 

 forest. 



In these ancient parks, oaks and beeches are the predomi- 

 nant trees, with occasional chestnuts and ashes. These trees 

 are looked on with great veneration ; in many cases they are 

 numbered ; in some a label is affixed to them, giving their age ; 

 sometimes a stone monument is erected, saying when or by 

 whom this forest or this clump was planted, and commonly 

 some family record is kept of them, as a part of the family 



