152 



The Forest Trees of Wiltshire. 



ago there were twelve in a nearly perfect state ; — the measurement 

 of one of them has been thus recorded : — " height 140 feet, and 

 circumferenco 17 feet." How far from the ground this measure- 

 ment was taken is not said ; but as all of them have clean trunks, 

 free from swellings, whether it was at two or three feet, or four or 

 five feet is not very important. In another part of the park, the 

 writer saw a silver fir seemingly a younger tree, sound, perfect, 

 and still growing, which measures a hundred and thirty feet in 

 height, fifteen feet in circumference at three feet from the ground, 

 and cdntains five hundred cubic feet of timber. In the gardens at 

 Tottenham, too, there is a noble silver fir. It is more than a 

 hundred feet high, and at four feet from the ground it is sixteen 

 feet in circumference. It is perfectly sound, and growing, and quite 

 straight up to the top. It is clear of branches to a height of about 

 twenty feet, above which it is uniformly feathered with branches, 

 the lower ones drooping to within a few feet of the ground : their 

 extreme spread may be from one hundred and eighty to two 

 hundred feet in circumference. At Roundway Park there is a fine 

 Silver Fir, one hundred and eight feet high, and twelve feet in 

 circumference at three feet from the ground ; and there is, as well, 

 a remarkably fine old Scotch Fir. Others, have been mentioned 

 as fair specimens ; but this, at Roundway, is greatly superior in size, 

 as well as in age. It has been much injured by storms, having 

 nothing that deserves to be called a " head " remaining. It has a 

 short trunk which, as it stands on the edge of a sort of ridge or 

 bank, is two or three feet longer on one side than on the other. 

 It is about ten feet in length, and has three great main limbs 

 springing from the trunk at different heights, at about six, nine, 

 and twelve feet from the ground. Of these main limbs three are 

 divided into secondary, but still large limbs ; while the other three 

 are single and smaller ones, though all six are very large. Measur- 

 ing the bole at one foot from the ground on the higher side, and 

 at three feet on the lower it is sixteen feet in circumference. The 

 limbs are mostly broken off short at twenty or thirty feet from the 

 ground, the upper part of the tree presenting the picture of a fine 

 old wreck. The tree itself is, however, perfectly sound, and is a 



