154 



The Forest Trees of Wiltshire. 



good height and great beauty are not at all uncommon. It is un- 

 necessary to enumerate the places where they are to be found. 

 Strange to say, the two which have been most frequently named 

 here — Longleat and Tottenham — are not at all famed for them. 

 But Bowood and "Wilton may boast of splendid specimens. The 

 latter, so far as the writer's knowledge goes, contains the best tree in 

 the county. It stands in the gardens and is called the "Earl's Tree." 

 And the writer believes he was quite justified in speaking of it 

 as the best cedar in the county. But he had no idea it is so grand 

 a tree, or that it is found in such company as it is. Thanks to a 

 friend, the reader shall have full particulars. One of the principal 

 trees of the group, for there are twenty-four of them upon the 

 lawn between the house and the water, measures as follows. The 

 circumference of the stem at one foot from the ground is twenty- 

 one feet, and at eight feet from the ground twenty-two feet. At 

 twelve feet high six enormous limbs, each measuring ten feet 

 in circumference, spring from the main stem. Immediately above 

 these, at an elevation of fifteen feet, the main stem measures 

 nineteen feet. At twenty feet from the ground, the main trunk 

 divides into seven distinct and enormous limbs, some of them 

 exceeding in size those already mentioned, the whole of which, 

 vigourous and healthy, reach a height of upwards of a hundred 

 feet. Each of these is equal in height to an ordinary tree, and the 

 effect is very grand. The tree just specified is not the largest, but 

 from its more favourable position produces the most striking effect. 

 If Loudon is correct that these cedars were raised between the 

 years 1710, and 1720, and taking into consideration that they 

 had been confined in pots some ten or twenty years, then indeed 

 is there no comparison between the growth of the cedar and 

 any common tree. When the writer was a boy, it was a com- 

 mon saying that an "Ash" would buy a horse before an "Oak" 

 would buy a saddle. Why ; any one of these would buy a whole 

 team of good horses ! The Evergreen Oak so well known in 

 some parts of England, is almost unknown in other districts not 

 far apart, or known only as a fine shrub. But where they grow 

 and thrive as they do at Wilton, they are worthy being ele- 



