OF FOREST-TREES. 



211 



be 676 fer^ ; and then allowing three yards (as before) for a beast, CHAP. iii. 

 leaves 225 beasts, which may possibly stand under this tree '^^'y^^ 



But the Lord's Oak, that stood in Rivelin, was in diameter three 

 yards and 28 inches, and exceeded this in circumference three feet, at 

 one foot from the ground. 



SHIRE-OAK. 



Shire-Oak is a tree standing in the ground late Sir Thomas Hewet's, 

 about a mile from Worksop park, which drops into three shires, viz. Hen. Homer. 

 York, Nottingham, and Derby, and the distance from bough-end to 

 bough-end is 90 feet, or 30 yards. 



This circumference will contain near 707 square yards, sufficient to 

 shade 235 horses. Thus far the accurate Mr. Halton. 



Now such venerable trees (especially conspicuously placed as this last) 

 should be spared for the most noble and natural boundaries to great 

 parishes and gentlemen's estates ; famous for which is the Chestnut-tree 

 at Tamworth, in Gloucestershire, which continued a signal boundary 

 to that manor in king Stephen's time, as it stands upon record. And 

 now, before I shut up these encouraging instances, I am informed by 

 a person of credit, that an Oak in Sheffield park, called the Lady's Oak, 

 when felled, contained forty-two tons of timber, which had arms that 

 held at least four feet square for ten yards in length ; the body six feet of 

 clear timber : that in the same park one might have chosen above one 

 thousand trees worth above six thousand pounds ; another thousand 

 worth four thousand pounds, et sic de cceteris. To this Mr. Halton 

 replies, That it might possibly be meant of the Lord's Oak already men- 

 tioned to have grown in Rivelin ; for now Rivelin itself is totally de- 

 stitute of that issue she once might have gloried in of Oaks, there being 

 only the Hall-park adjoining, which keeps up with its number of Oaks. 

 And as to the computation of one thousand trees formerly in Sheffield 



' His Grace the Duke of Portland has presented this work with two fine views of this 

 celebrated tree, so that by comparing its present state with its ancient one, we may dis- 

 cover the ravages that time has made upon it during a period of 120 years. 



