This shows an average number of trees per acre (omitting the oak poles) of about 125, and a value of £320 per acre.
Perhaps the greatest increase of girth on record in the oak is cited by Gadeau de Kerville! of three oaks which were felled at Neauphe-sur-Dives (Orne) in Normandy in 1894. Their exact age was not possible to decide, as they were already trimmed and barked and part of the sapwood taken off, but the rings counted by M. de Kerville were 115 to 120, and the girths 6.16, 4.98, and 4.28 metres respectively. He thought that they might be from 150 to 200 years at most, and this would make the average annual increase of the largest, on the section measured, over 5 centimetres per annum.
Remarkable Trees
The mass of information on the oak which exists in English literature, is so great, so scattered, and often so impossible to verify, that I have had great difficulty in making a selection of what is really valuable and authentic, and have preferred rather to speak of trees and woods that we have seen ourselves, and to quote from the letters of living correspondents, than to repeat what has been written by Evelyn, Hunter, Strutt, Selby, Loudon, and other writers, whose works can always be consulted by those desirous of more detailed particulars than our space . will allow.
Some of the most wonderful oaks of England, which we have seen and now figure, must be described more particularly, and among these I think the oaks of Powis Castle come first. Robert Marsham, in a letter communicated by Sir T. Beevor to the Bath and West of England Societies’ Transactions, i. 78 (1783), says:—“The handsomest oak I ever saw was in the Earl of Powis’ noble park by Ludlow in 1757, though it was but 16 feet 3 inches. But it ran straight and clear of arms, I believe, near full 60 feet, and had a large and fine head.”
In April 1904 the Earl of Powis showed me some trees growing in his ancient park at Powis Castle, near Welshpool, Montgomeryshire, which I believe to be actually the champion oaks of Great Britain at the present time. They grow on a Silurian formation at about 300 to 400 feet elevation, with an east aspect, and are, as far as one can judge, perfectly sound in the butt, though one of them lost several branches during the dry seasons between 1893 and 1903, and another has a large decayed limb which, if not taken off, may cause the butt to decay.
The measurements which I give were made most carefully by Mr. W.F. Addie, agent for the Powis estates, who used a long ladder and a man to climb nearly all over them and take the length and girth of the principal branches down to 6 inches quarter-girth. I checked the height and girth of the trunks myself as carefully as possible, and believe that the following is a very accurate estimate,
Les vieux arbres de la Normandie, iii. 373 (1895).
