The Forest Trees of Wiltshire. 149 



in this county. There are some fine trees at Longleat ; tall, straight, 

 clean and sound, many of them probably measuring ten or twelve 

 feet in circumference at three or four feet from the ground. At 

 Tottenham also, you will find numbers answering to a like des- 

 cription. Probably there may be giant ashes, as well as oaks, elms, 

 and other trees in Wilts ; but the writer has not fallen in the way 

 of them, nor has he heard of any. The largest ash tree in this 

 country is said to stand in Bedfordshire, at Woburn Park. Its 

 height is stated at ninety feet ; the stem alone being twenty-eight 

 feet. At the ground its circumference is given as twenty-three 

 feet six inches ; at one foot, twenty feet ; and at three feet from 

 the ground, fifteen feet three inches. Doubtless this is a very fine 

 tree ; but it may well be questioned whether its description as the 

 V largest in this country" — a wide limit — is correct. It is highly 

 probable that larger ones may be found in this county, for among 

 the old trees at Spye Park the writer has seen one — and there may 

 be more — which may venture to compete with this " largest ash" 

 The tree alluded to has a short trunk ; and at three feet from the 

 ground it is the same size as the Woburn tree, namely, fifteen feet 

 in circumference. Of the three points of measurement given, this 

 is the fairest for comparison, the ground or even one foot above it, 

 not being any just criterion as to the size of a tree. This Spye 

 Park ash is somewhat remarkable in its growth and appearance ; 

 for it has not a "head," in the common acceptation of the term, 

 but seven large limbs, each a timber in point of size, which spring 

 from it, rising to a very considerable height, with clean stems, free 

 from small branches either on them or at the top of the trunk 

 itself. To account for such a singular form of growth, it is proba- 

 ble that it was pollarded when quite a young tree, or that it lost 

 its top from some accident. The ash is certainly a graceful tree, 

 so much so in the estimation of some that Gilpin, in his " Forest 

 Scenery " calls it the " Yenus of the Woods," whereupon the cele- 

 brated William Cobbett, in his " Woodlands," makes the following 

 quaint but true remark ; alluding to its leaves, he says : — " Well ; 

 if the Ash be the ' Yenus of the Woods,' she certainly must be 

 the naked Yenus, for she is the last to put on her clothes, and the first 



k 2 



