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LETTER V. 
[White to Marsharu.] 
Selbohne: Jan. 18th. 1791. 
Dear Sir, 
As your long silence gave me some uneasiness lest 
it sliould have been occasioned by indisposition ; so the sight of 
your last obliging letter afforded me much satisfaction in proportion. 
I was not a little pleased to find that your friend Lord Suffield 
corroborated the account of the Cuckoo given by Mr. Jennor, 
whose relation of the proceedings of that peculiar bird is very 
curious, new, & extraordinary. — It does not appear from y r - 
letter that you endeavoured to revive the Swallow, which fell 
down before y r - parlor-window. — I have not yet done with trees, 
& shall therefore add, that my tall 74 f. beech measures 6 feet 
in the girth at two feet above the ground. Beeches seem to me to 
thrive best on stoney, or chalkey cliffs, where there seems to be 
little or no soil. Thus about a mile & an half from me to the S.E. 
in an abrupt field, stand four noble beech-trees on the edge of a steep, 
rocky-ravin, or water-gulley, the biggest of which measures 9 feet 
5 inches at four feet from the ground. Their noble branching heads, 
6 smooth rind show, that they are in the highest vigour & 
preservation. Again the vast bloated, pollard, hollow beeches, 
mentioned before, stood on the bare, naked end of a chalky 
promontory, many of which measured from 20 to 30 feet in circum- 
ference! they were the admiration of all strangers. How has 
prevailed the notion that all old London was built with chestnut? 
It is with us now vile timber, porous, shakey, & fragil, & only 
fit for the meanest coopery purposes. Yet have I known it 
smuggled into Portsmouth dock as good ship-building oak ! 1 
The more I observe & take notice of the best oaks now 
remaining in this neighbourhood, the more I am astonished at the 
oak which you planted yourself. For there is a most noble treo 
of that kind near Ilartely house, which I caused to be measured 
1 In his “ Observations on Vegetables” White has remarked, “ The timber 
and bark of these trees are so very like oak, as might easily deceive an 
indifferent observer. * * * Chestnut sells for half the price of oak ; but has 
sometimes been sent into the King’s docks, and passed off instead of oak.’ 
— J.E.II. 
