Plate 26. Queen Elizabeth's Oak at Huntingfield in Suffolk is, I believe, the same tree which I saw on Lord Huntingfield's property, near the Hill Farm, Strutt quotes from Davy's letters but gives no measurement. It was quite hollow in 1773, and is now divided into three great sections which lean outwards and measure in all 39 feet 8 inches in girth. It has a few green and healthy branches, and the sound parts of the shell are about a foot thick.
Plate 27. Sir Philip Sidney's Oak at Penshurst, Kent, was, in 1822, a very old tree measuring 22 feet in girth.
Plate 28. The King Oak in Savernake Forest was quite hollow when figured by Strutt, and measured 24 feet in girth.
Plate 33. The Twelve Apostles at Burley Lodge, New Forest.
Plate 34. The Squitch Bank Oak in Bagot's Park was in 1822, and still is, one of the finest in England, and is now considered by Lord Bagot the best oak in his park.
Plate 35. Two trees called Gog and Magog near Castle Ashby still survive, and, judging from photographs of them sent me by Mr. Scriven, have not changed much in appearance, though Gog has apparently lost its bark on one side. Though very picturesque, they are not well-shaped trees. The former is now 58 feet by 28 feet, at 3 feet, with contents 1668 feet; the latter is 49 feet by 28½ feet.
Plate 36. The Tall Oak at Fredville is to my eye the best shaped of Strutt's oaks, though not of extraordinary size. He says the stem went up straight and clean to about 78 feet, and the girth at 4 feet was 18 feet.
Among the trees figured in Sylva Scotica, a continuation of the work just cited, there is only one oak, namely, Wallace's Oak at Elderslee or Ellerslie, near Paisley. Many larger and finer oaks than this occur in Scotland. Judging from the figure it is not remarkable except from its historic interest, which seems rather mythical.
The Oak in Scotland
The oak rarely attains in Scotland the size and vigour so commonly met with in England.[1] Mr. Hutchinson[2] has catalogued 151 Scottish oaks, remarkable for size; and of these only six exceeded 20 feet in girth at 5 feet above the ground; the largest recorded by him, at Lee, Lanarkshire, was 22 feet girth at 3 feet up, the total height being 68 feet. The tallest oak recorded by Hutchinson was one at Hopetoun, Linlithgowshire, 110 feet high, with a bole of 93 feet, girthing 8 feet 8 inches, but I saw no tree approaching this height at Hopetoun in 1904. In Dr. Christison's[3] paper on the "Rate of Girth Increase in Trees," the average rate of increase is given for trees at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden; Craigiehall, Linlithgowshire; Pollok, Renfrewshire; and Methven Castle, Perthshire. The rate of course depends on the age of the trees, and is very variable even in the same locality. At
- ↑ Sir Herbert Maxwell thinks that this is not owing to soil or climate, but to the fact that Scotland was denuded of trees before the seventeenth century. Planting was carried on slowly and sporadically after the Union, and there are few planted oaks in Scotland over 200 years old.
- ↑ Trans. Highl. and Agric. Soc. Scot. xiii, 218 (1881).
- ↑ Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. xix. 461 (1892).
