Remarkable Trees
As an instance of the rapid growth of the beech, I will quote from a letter of Robert Marsham of Stratton Strawless, near Norwich, to Gilbert White, dated 24th July 1790, in which he says: "I wish I had begun planting with beeches (my favourite trees as well as yours), and I might have seen large trees of my own raising. But I did not begin beeches till 1741, and then by seed; and my largest is now at 5 feet, 6' 3" round, and spreads a circle of + 20 yards diamr. But this has been digged round and washed, etc." In Gilbert White's reply to this letter, dated Selborne, 13th August 1790, he says: "I speak from long observation when I assert, that beechen groves to a warm aspect grow one-third faster than those that face to the N. and N.E., and the bark is much more clean and smooth."
Marsham, replying to White on 31st August (it seems to have been at least fifteen days' post in those days from Norfolk to Hants), says: "Mr. Drake has a charming grove of beech in Buckinghamshire, where the handsomest tree (as I am informed by a friend to be depended on) runs 75 feet clear, and then about 35 feet more in the head. I went on purpose to see it. It is only 6 F. 6 I. round, but straight as possible. Some beeches in my late worthy friend Mr. Naylor's park at Hurstmonceux in Sussex ran taller and much larger, but none so handsome." In a later letter he speaks of one being felled here in 1750 which "ran 81 feet before it headed."
Sir Hugh Beevor informs me that he found it impossible to identify with certainty the trees measured at Stratton Strawless by Marsham, which we shall have occasion to allude to later.[1]
It would be impossible to mention more than a few of the finest beech trees in this country, but the photographs which have been reproduced represent a few of those which I have seen myself.
In Hants there are many fine beeches in the New Forest, of which the wood called Mark Ash contains some of the most picturesque, and is to my eyes one of the most beautiful woods from a naturalist's point of view in England, or even in Europe, though it is, like so many of the fine old woods in the New Forest, deteriorating from causes which are described elsewhere. One of the finest trees here is over 100 feet high and 24 feet in girth, dividing at about 10 feet into six immense erect limbs, and entirely surrounded, as are many of the trees in this wood, by a dense thicket of holly.
There is another beech in Woodfidley in the New Forest which Mr. Lascelles considers the finest beech in the forest, and of which the measurement as given by him is 120 feet high, 14 feet 6 inches in girth at 5 feet, carrying its girth well up, with an estimated cubic content of 650 feet.
In Old Burley enclosure is another magnificent beech, rather shut in by other trees, and therefore difficult to measure for height. I estimated it at 110 feet high. The girth was 18 feet, dividing at about 25 feet into two main trunks, which carried a
- ↑ Cf. Trans. of the Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. ii. 133–195.
