144 



The Forest Trees of Wiltshire. 



stately mansion may bo seen, an imaginative, romantic pcrsonj 

 might almost fancy himself perched on the topmost bough of someij 

 gigantic tree, — the house to be the nest of some monster bird far! 

 exceeding in size "Sinbad's Roc," — and the circumjacent woods! 

 to be the entire top of that mammoth tree on which he is placed ; 

 — so thick, so close, so dense is the leafy sea around him. 



To return to the immediate subject. So far as the tree now under 

 notice (the beech) is concerned, Longleat swarms with noble speci- 

 mens, although it is not so much the tree of the place as of 

 Tottenham. "With regard to other trees, it is ricb indeed ; almost 1 

 every kind being found there of noble proportions and of great 

 beauty. Perhaps it is most noted for its silver firs, unusually 

 large specimens of which are to be found there, and will be more 

 particularly noticed in their proper place, in speaking of other 

 members of the " Pine " family. It is also, or rather it has long 

 been supposed to be famous for its Weymouth Pines. This tree, 

 the "White Pine," attains an enormous size in North America, 

 one having been spoken of some thirty years ago in a work of repu- 

 tation, as being then growing near Port Astoria, on the banks of 

 the river Columbia, which at fifty feet from the ground measured 

 sixty feet in circumference, and ran to a height of two hundred 

 feet, with a clear trunk, free from side branches, and a fine head 

 above. It was introduced into England in the early part of the I 

 last century, was planted in considerable numbers at Longleat by 

 the then noble owner, Lord Weymouth, and from that circumstance 

 obtained its present well-known name. But they did not thrive, 

 there b or elsewhere, as it was expected they would : the soil or cli- 

 mate of this kingdom not seeming to suit them. They never 

 attained any very great size, and a very few only, and those but 

 insignificant specimens remain. The probability is, that some 

 person who visited Longleat, bearing in mind the connexion 

 between the name of the noble owner of that noble estate, and the 

 tree in question, mistook the grand silver firs, for which it is so 

 justly famous, for Weymouth Pines, and hence the error. 



Before leaving the Beech, the writer ventures to mention a tree 

 not in this, but in an adjoining county. It stands at Corhampton, 



