Mr. O.H. Wade, agent for the estate, tells me that this tree cannot now be identified.
Another celebrated tree, mentioned by Loudon as Pontey's Beech, was measured for him in 1837 by the direction of the Duke of Bedford in the Park at Woburn Abbey. It was then 100 feet high, with a clean bole of 50 feet, and was 12 feet 6 inches in girth at 4 feet. When visited in July 1903 it was about the same height and 14 feet 6 inches in girth, and was estimated to contain nearly 600 cubic feet.
A tree known as the Corton Beech at Boyton, Wilts, once the home of Mr. Lambert, author of the Genus Pinus, and mentioned by Loudon as one of the largest in England, was blown down a few years ago, and I have not been able to get its dimensions.
There were some very fine beeches at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle, one of which Loudon gives as 110 feet by 14 feet 2 inches, with a clean bole of 70 feet, and the other as containing 940 feet of timber, but when I visited this fine place in 1905 I could not identify either of these trees as still standing, though I saw many in Raywood of great size, with clean boles of 50 to 60 feet. A tree standing outside the garden wall was remarkable for the very rugged bark on its trunk, which up to 8 to 10 feet from the ground was more like that of an elm than a beech.
In Scotland, though the beech does not attain quite the same height and size as in some parts of England, it is a fine and commonly planted tree.
The self-layered beech at Newbattle Abbey near Dalkeith, the property of the Marquess of Lothian, eight miles from Edinburgh, must be looked on as the most remarkable, if not the largest, of all the beeches of the park or spreading type now standing in Britain; and though difficult to represent such a tree by photography in a manner to show its great size, every pains has been taken by Mr. Wallace of Dalkeith to do it justice (Plates 8 and 9). This splendid tree is growing in light alluvial soil in front of the house, and not far from the banks of the North Esk river, and may be 300 years old or more. It was in Loudon's time 88 feet high, and the trunk 9 feet in diameter (probably at the base), with a spread of branches of 100 feet. When I visited it in February 1904 under the guidance of Mr. Ramsay, who has known the tree for many years, I made it about 105 feet high, with a girth at about 5 feet—which is near the narrowest part of the bole—of 21 feet 6 inches. The trunk, as will be seen from the figure, is unusual in shape, and shows no sign of decay except where one large limb has been blown off, and this has been carefully covered with lead. But the numerous branches which have drooped to the ground, taken root, and formed a circle of subsidiary stems round the main trunk, are its most peculiar feature, and may remain as large trees for centuries after the central stem decays. The first of these has produced 7 stems of various sizes growing into fresh trees, at a distance of 8 to 12 yards from the trunk. The second has 2 large and 3 smaller stems. The third has 3 large stems about 30 to 40 feet high and 3 to 4 feet in girth. The fourth has 3 large and 6 smaller ones. The fifth is not yet firmly rooted, but is fastened down in several places to prevent the wind from moving it. The total circumference of
