Chapter Traveller to Trees noted for Specific Virtues and Uses of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

high; it contained 875 feet of timber. He also mentions one in Cobham Park, 28 feet in girth and 90 feet in height.

The lime tree in the Grisons is upwards of 590 years old.

(24) Maple Tree, employed for cabinet-work, gunstocks, screws for cider-presses, and turnery. The Tigrin and Pantherine tables were made of maple. The maple tables of Cicero, Asinius Gallus, king Juba, and the Mauritanian Ptolemy, “are worth their weight in gold.”

At Knowle, in Kent, there is a maple tree which is 14 feet in girth.—Strutt: Sylva Britannica,

(25) Mountain Ash or Rowan Tree, used for hoops, and for bows, comes. next to the yew. It forms good and lasting posts, and is made into hurdles, tables, spokes of wheels, shafts, chairs, and so on. The roots are made into spoons and knife-handles. The bark makes excellent tan. Twigs of rowan used to be carried about as a charm against witches. Scotch dairy-maids drive their cattle with rowan rods; and at Strathspey, in Scotland, at one time, sheep and lambs were made to pass through hoops of rowan wood on May-day. (See Quicken Trees, p. 891.)

In Wales, the rowan used to be considered sacred; it was planted in churchyards, and crosses made of the wood were commonly worn.

Their spells were vain. The hags returned
To the queen in sorrowful mood,
Crying that witches have no power
Where there is rown tree wood.
   —The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs.

(26) Myrtle. Some Northern nations use it instead of hops. The catkins, boiled in water, throw up a waxy scum, of which candles were made by Dutch boers. Hottentots (according to Thunberg) make a cheese of it. Myrtle tan is good for tanning calf-skins.

Laid under a bed, it keeps off fleas and moths.

(27) Oak Tree, the king of the forest and patriarch of trees, wholly unrivalled in stature, strength, and longevity. The timber is used for ship-building, the bark for tanning leather, and the gall for making ink. Oak timber is used for every work where durability and strength are required.

Oak trees best resist the thunderstroke.—B. P. (William Browne is responsible for this statement).

It bursts into leaf between April 10 and May 26.

In 1757 there was an oak in earl Powis’s park, near Ludlow, 16 feet in girth (5 feet from the ground) and 60 feet high (Marsham). Panshanger Oak, in Kent, is 19 feet in girth, and contains 1000 feet of timber, though not yet in its prime (Marsham). Salcey Forest Oak, in Northamptonshire, is 24 feet in girth (Marsham). God, in Yardley Forest, is 28 feet in girth, and contains 1658 cubic feet of timber. The king of Wynnstay Park, North Wales, is 30 feet in girth. The Queen’s Oak, Huntingfield, Suffolk, from which queen Elizabeth shot a buck, is 35 feet in girth (Marsham). Shelton Oak, near Shrewsbury, called the “Grette Oake” in 1543, which served the great Glendower for a post of observation in the battle of Shrewsbury (1403), is 37 feet in girth (Marsham). Green Dale Oak, near Welbeck, is 38 feet in girth, 11 feet from the ground (Evelyn). Cowthorpe Oak, near Wetherby, is 48 feet in girth (Evelyn). The great oak in Broomfield Wood, near Ludlow, was, in 1764, 68 feet in girth, 23 feet high, and contained 1455 feet of timber (Lightfoot). Beggar’s Oak, in Blithfield Park, Staffordshire, contains 827 cubic feet of timber, and, in 1812, was valued at £200 (Marsham). Fredville Oak, Kent, contains 1400 feet of timber (Marsham). But the most stupendous oak ever grown in England was that dug out of Hatfield Bog: it was 12 feet in girth at the larger end, 6 feet at the smaller end, and 120 feet in length; so that it exceeded the famous larch tree brought to Rome in the reign of Tiberius, as Pliny states in his Natural History.