46 
Work to be done in the Garden. 
it dragged to the garden. We had once two 
enormous oak-trunks, they had been “ hollow trees” 
for I should think fifty years, the whole wood 
seemed gone and only a sort of shell next the 
bark was left. How large they were I cannot 
now remember, but I do not think the largest was 
less than five feet across. Their trunks were 
lashed in some way or other on wheels, and a nice 
piece of work we had getting them set in order. 
Some friends of ours just then had two much 
smaller stumps ; theirs were mounted on the stems 
of two cut-down trees which made a sort of 
pedestal, and theirs had the bark off, but ours had 
the bark left on, which we thought most natural 
as they were intended to stand upon the ground. 
We had the turf taken up for some way all round, 
and a heap of soil taken out, so as to sink the root 
a little and make it stand the steadier ; when it 
was in its place the turf was put on all round 
again. Some of us were very active in the trans- 
portation of these great roots, and that, I assure 
you, was work for a winter’s day. The quantity 
of soil that it takes to fill these tree-trunks is quite 
prodigious, load after load seems to be swallowed 
up. In this respect of course the smaller trunks 
are done a great deal sooner and much more easily, 
