1774 -

arboretum AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

year 1696; and over the door of the upper room is a label, dedicating it to“ Our Lady of Peace.” Allonville is about a mile from Yvetot, on the roadbetween Rouen and Havre.

The following information we have received from our friend, the AbbeGosier of Rouen. In the first volume of the Archives annuelles de la Nor-mandie, printed at Caen in 1824, there is an article on the oaks of Fournet,in which, after mentioning that several of these oaks were of enormous size, thefollowing particulars are given of some of them : — The Goulande Oak nearDourfront is about 30 ft. in circumference. The two oaks of Mayior, in thecanton of Calvados, are of very great size. The largest is above 42 ft. in cir-cumference at the surface of the ground, and above 30 ft. in circumference atthe height of 6 ft. All these oaks have lost their leading shoots, and havetheir trunks hollow. The oak called La Cave is a very remarkable tree. Itstands in the Forest ofBrothone. The trunk is 26 ft. in circumference in itssmallest part; it is hollow; and at a few feet from the base it divides into fivelarge branches or rather trees, which rise to a considerable height. Thetrunk from which they spring has the appearance of a large goblet; it ishollow, cup-shaped, covered with bark inside, and nearly always filled withwater, which is seldom less than 5 ft. deep. “ I visited this tree,” says M.Deshayes (who wrote the account which has been sent to us by the AbbeGosier), “ on July 30th, 1825, and, though it was a season of extraordinarydrought, I found the water in the tree was 2 ft. 6 in. deep. I visited it somemonths afterwards, and found the basin full.” At Bonnevaux is an oak, inthe hollow trunk of which there is a circular table, round which 20 personshave sate to dinner. {Letter from VAbbe Gosier.')

A large oak in the Forest of Cerisy, known under the name of the Quenesse,at a little distance to the right of the great road to St. Lo, is supposed, bycomparing various data, to be 800 or 900 years old. In 1824, it measured36 ft. in circumference just above the soil, and was about 55 ft. high. Thetrunk is now hollow, and will hold 14 or 15 persons. ( Athenaeum , Aug. 20.1836.)

An immense oak was, in May, 1836, felled on the road from Yitre toFougeres. It was 22 ft. in circumference, had a straight trunk 30 ft. long, andweighed 24 tons. Ten pair of oxen and twenty horses were required to carryit away. ( Galignani .)

Large Oaks in Germany. The ancient Germans, history informs us, hadoak castles. In the hollow of one, we read that a hermit built his cell andchapel; ami of some oaks of almost incredible bulk, which Evelyn says inhis time were “ lately standing in Westphalia,” one was 130 ft. high, and re-ported to be 30 ft. in diameter; another yielded 100 loads of timber; and athird “ served both for a castle and a fort.” ( Amcen. Quer.) The followingextract is from Googe’s Four Bookes of Husbandrie (1586) :—“ We have atthis day an oke in Westphalia, not far from the Castle of Alsenan, which isfrom the foote to the neerest bowe, one hundred and thirtie foote, and threeelles in thickness ; and another, in another place, that, being cutte out, madea hundred waine load. Not farre from this place there grew an other oke oftenne yardes in thicknesse, but not very hie.” (p.101.5.)

Having now given what may be considered a county biography of cele-brated British oaks, and enumerated a few remarkable foreign ones, we shallnext collect together, without reference to locality, the names of a few re-markable for some peculiarity in their trunks or branches; in their origin ; thetrees with which they grow; for the quantity of timber they have produced,or their rate of growth; and which, for the sake of distinction, may be calledthe comparative biography of celebrated oaks.

Oaks remarkable for their Age. “ If we consider,” says Marshall {Plant, andRut. Orn.) “ the quick growth of the chestnut, compared with that of the oak,and, at the same time, the inferior bulk of the trunk of the Tortworth Chestnutto that of the trunk of the Cowthorpe, the Bentley, or the Doddington Oak,may we not venture to infer that the existence of these truly venerable trees