326 
NOTES TO THE 
bears transplanting better than an elm, up to fifty years of age ; 
no tree is more easily killed by disturbing it in any way in 
Its old age. 
The Vast Oak, growing in the Plestor, cannot have its age 
estimated, as no dimensions are given. As a rough rule, there' 
are ten years' growth in every inch of radius of the stem. 
The remarks I have previously made will show why he 
specially speaks of the tree having been " planted." Many 
people would, at that time, have disputed what we now 
know, and the system we now have of growing plants in 
nurseries and then sending them out in thousands was almost 
unknown 100 years ago, especially with all the hard- 
wood trees. It is not known to what age or to what dimen- 
sions an oak will grow with fair play. In fact, I have 
never known an oak die of pure old age. Either lightning or 
neglected wounds have been the cause of death ; you may 
recover an oak in its last stage by removing the cause of 
decay. 
William the Conqueror's Oak at Windsor is certainly 1,200 
to 1,500 years of age, and is about 33 feet round ; the King 
Oak is 35 feet round, and as old; Queen Elizabeth's Oak, 29 feet 
round, is probably 1,000 years old ; the age of Shakespeare's 
Oak it is impossible to estimate, as it is now only a white shell 
with a few bleached hoary branches. 
As for the " tall and taper oaks," White speaks of, they were 
not very common in England, except in the Weald of Kent, 
Surrey, and Sussex, which have naturally supplied ship -timber 
for hundreds of years. 
Chaucer, writing in the 14th century, describes such a wood. 
He says : — 
" These trees were set that I devize 
One from another in assize. 
Five fadom or six ; I trowe so. 
But they ivere high and great also.'' 
These trees could only have been high and great by being grown in 
the manner Mr. White describes, as oaks naturally are a spread- 
ing tree and only go up straight when crowded. The great art 
in managing oak woods for timber is to keep them to this 
upright growth and yet not deprive them of a sufficiency of 
branches, which in reality are the lungs of the tree. This dis- 
tinguishes the English from the Continental system of manage- 
ment. 
It is not known what produces the excrescences on the oaks ; 
