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white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep into the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. This white soil produces the brightest hops.

As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand, the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shakey, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing.* Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips.

LETTER II.

TO THE SAME.

IN the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to the north-west of the village, on the white malms, stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, ulmus folio latissimo scabrot of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year

* The common larch is very soon lost when planted above a substratum of red sandstone. In the Vale of the Annan, wherever the sloping banks have a substratum of this rock, or one composed of a sort of red sandstone, shingle, or gravel, the outward decay of the tree is visible at from fifteen to twenty-five years of age. The internal decay commences sooner, according to the depth of the upper soil, in the centre of the trunk, at the root, in the wood being of a darker colour, extending by degrees in circumference and up the stem, until the lower part of it becomes entirely deprived of vegetation, and assumes a tough and corky appearance. This extends to the whole plant, which gradually decays and dies. On the same soil the oak grows and thrives well.

The "freestone" to which Mr. White refers, is the white or grey, and may have a different effect on these trecs.-W. J.

+ The ulmus montana, Sir J. E. Smith, and the most common in Scotland. There are four additional species admitted into the Flora of Great Britain, which are now to be generally met with in the plantations made within the last twelve or fifteen years.-W. J.

1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in diameter.* This elm I mention, to show to what a bulk planted elms may attain; as this tree must certainly have been such, from its situation.† In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground, surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called the Plestor. In the midst of this spot stood, in olden times, a

*The dimensions here alluded to are insignificant, when compared with those of a wych elm recorded by Mr. Evelyn, growing in Sir Walter Bagot's park, in the county of Stafford, which, after two men had been five days felling, lay 40 yards in length, and was at the stool 17 feet diameter. It broke in the fall, 14 loads of wood: 48 in the top: yielding 8 pair of naves, 8660 feet of boards and planks; it cost 107. 178. the sawing. The whole esteemed 97 tons.-EVELYN's Sylva, ii. 189.

Pitte's elm, in the Vale of Gloucester, was, in 1783, about 80 feet high, and the smallest girth of the principal trunk was 16 feet.-W. J.

Dr. Plot mentions an elm growing on Blechington Green, which gave reception and harbour to a poor great-bellied woman, whom the inhospitable people would not receive into their houses, who was brought to bed in it of a son, now a lusty young fellow.-PLOT's Oxfordshire.-W. J.

One of the largest wych elms in England is now growing and flourishing in the grounds of Mr. and Lady Charlotte Penrhyn, at Sheen, Surrey. Two hundred persons lately sat down to a déjeûner under the shade of its spreading branches.-ED.

Our largest trees are quite insignificant when compared with one our present excellent bishop of New Zealand discovered in one of the Tonga Islands, a part of his diocese. In a letter to his father he mentions, that having measured it, he found it 23 fathoms, or 138 feet in circumference! Humboldt, in his very interesting work, " Views of Nature," has a chapter on the age and size of trees, in which he mentious the pine tree, "Taxodium distichon," as measuring above 40 feet in diameter.-See Bohn's edition, p. 274. Other remarkable examples will be found in Loudon's Arboretum.-Eo.

Sir W. Jardine gives the following explanation of the Plestor, in the Antiquities of Selborne. It appears to have been left as a sort of redeeming offering by Sir Adam Gordon, in olden times an inhabitant of Selborne, well known in English history during the reign of Henry III., particularly as a leader of the Mountfort faction. Mr. White says:-"As Sir Adam began to advance in years, he found his mind influenced by the prevailing opinion of the reasonableness and efficacy of prayers for the dead; and, therefore, in conjunction with his wife Constantia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and convent of Selborne all his right and claim to a certain place, placea, called La Pleystow, in the village aforesaid, in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam,' (for free charitable purposes). This pleystow, locus ludorum, or play-place, is in a level arca near the church, of about 44 yards by 36, and is known now by the name of Plestor. It continues still, as it was in old

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vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms, extending almost to the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings; where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again: but all his care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. This oak I mention, to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive; and planted this tree must certainly have been, as appears from what is known concerning the antiquities of the village.†

times, to be the scene of recreation for the youths and children of the neighbourhood; and impresses an idea on the mind, that this village, even in Saxon times, could not be the most abject of places, when the inhabitants thought proper to assign so spacious a spot for the sports and amusements of its young people."-W. J.

Two species of oak only are admitted into the British Flora, quercus robur, and sessiliflora. Several others, however, have been introduced, and grow well; the quercus robur is, nevertheless, superior to all of them. The other species are said to be more susceptible of the dry rot.-W. J.

The celebrated Cowthorpe oak, upon an estate near Wetherby, belonging to the Right Hon. Lady Stourton, measures, within three feet of the surface, 16 yards in circumference, and close by the ground, 26 yards. Its height is about 80 feet, and its principal limb extends 16 yards from the boll. The Greendale oak, at a foot from the ground, is in circumference 33 feet 10 inches. The Shire oak covers nearly 707 square yards; the branches stretching into three counties,-York, Nottingham, and Derby. The Fairlop oak in Essex, at a yard from the ground, is 36 feet in circumference. Damory's oak, in Dorsetshire, at the ground, was in circumference 68 feet, and, when decaying, became hollow, forming a cavity capable of containing 20 men. An oak, felled at Withy Park, Shropshire, in 1697, was 9 feet in diameter without the bark. The Baddington oak, in the Vale of Gloucester, was 54 feet in circumference at the base; and Wallace's oak, in Torwood, in the county of Stirling, must have been at least 11 or 12 feet in diameter.-W. J.

The Galynos oak was one of the largest trees of the kind in England on record. It grew in the county of Monmouth. Five men were each twenty days in stripping and cutting it down; and a pair of sawyers were constantly employed 138 days in its conversion. The expense alone of doing this was 82. The main trunk of the tree was nine feet and a half in diameter. It had been improving for 400 years, as found from the rings in its butt. When standing, it overspread 452 square yards. Its produce was 2426 feet of solid timber, as ascertained from the navy office returns. The bark produced 600 pounds.-ED.

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