seat of Lord Walsingham, where the largest, now much decayed, is about 27 feet in girth; at Blickling, where an oak in the kitchen garden 95 feet high, said by Grigor to have been planted by the Earl of Buckinghamshire, has a straight clean trunk 32 feet high and 15½ in girth; and at Stratton Strawless, where there is a beautiful straight-stemmed oak close to the house clean to 40 feet high and over 10 in girth.
Cowthorpe Oak.—No oak in England has probably been the subject of so much writing as the Cowthorpe Oak, near Wetherby, which perhaps never was such a great tree as has been supposed, and is now a mere wreck. It has been figured several times, so that I need only refer those who wish to know more of it to a paper with illustrations by Mr. John Clayton, published in the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 1903, p. 396. A comparison of the various measurements taken at different times shows great discrepancies. Mr. Clayton attempts to prove by a diagram that the decay of its roots have allowed it to settle into the ground, and thus explains the diminution in its girth, but the discrepancy between measure- ments taken by different people is considerable. The girth at 5 feet given by Marsham as 36½ feet in 1768, when no hollow or cavity is mentioned as existing in the tree, and the girth given by Mr. Clayton of 36 feet 10½ inches, at 5 feet 3 inches in 1893, are so nearly identical that I do not think Mr. Clayton proves his argument. Whether trees ever subside owing to the decay of their roots is to me a very doubtful point, and I have certainly seen oaks felled which, though of great age and completely hollow, were supported in their original position by a mere shell. I visited the Cowthorpe Oak in July 1906, and found that in its present condition no accurate measurement of it could be taken, a large part of one side having fallen in. I could see no evidence to support Mr. Clayton’s idea that the base of the tree had sunk into the ground. The few living branches still bear acorns, from which some seedlings were raised in 1905 by Messrs. Kent and Brydon, nurserymen of Darlington.
The finest oaks in Yorkshire that I have seen or heard of are in the park at Studley Royal, which were described and figured by Loudon from drawings which I have seen in the Marquess of Ripon’s library. Though I could not identify the draw- ings with trees now standing, Loudon gives the dimensions of the largest pedunculate tree as 80 feet by 24 feet 4 inches, and the largest sessile oak, which he says was then the largest in England, as 118 feet by 33½ feet. The best that were shown me were a pedunculate oak 80 feet by 23 feet, a good deal past its prime, and a sessile oak which I made 114 feet by 12 feet 2 inches, a vigorous and healthy tree.
One of the most remarkable oaks in England on account of its shape is the Umbrella Oak at Castlehill, North Devon (Plate 97). This tree had not altered materially during the recollection of the late Earl Fortescue, who lived to be over eighty, though it does not give the impression of very great age. It grows on a slope called Eggesford Bank, near the house, and has a clean bole about 8 feet by 6 feet 8 inches. The branches spread horizontally from one point, and form a close flat surface, of which the twigs are interlaced, and spread to a diameter of about 25 yards. Seedlings have been raised from its acorns, which do not produce this very curious habit, and attempts to reproduce it by grafts have not succeeded.
