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beneath. At Fulmodestone, Norfolk, Sir Hugh Beevor measured, in 1904, a tree 98 feet high by 84 feet in girth. Henry saw a tree there in 1905, which was 82 feet by 9 feet 4 inches.
Many other trees which approach if they do not exceed 100 feet in height, may be found in the southern and western counties.
At Endsleigh, in Devonshire, which was visited by the English Arboricultural Society’ in August 1906, there is a very fine plantation of Douglas fir in Gunoak Wood, of which careful measurements were made by Mr. R. G. Forbes, forester to the Duke of Bedford, in November 1906, from which it appears that the three largest trees in this plantation measure as follows:—
| No. 16. 120 feet high by 11 inches quarter-girth = 100 cubic feet. |
| No. 23. 100 feet high by„ 13 inches quarter-girth„ = 117 cubic feet.„ |
| No. 30. 110 feet high by„ 13 inches quarter-girth„ = 129 cubic feet.„ |
Mr. E.C. Rundle, agent for the property, writes to me as follows: “The forester says that the trees must not be taken as a full crop, for there is space on the 4 acre for forty trees instead of thirty-two. As to their age I believe they must be over fifty years, probably fifty-five, though an old man remembers their being planted. The quarter-girth was taken over bark at half the length of the tree, and an inch to the foot would be sufficient allowance. They are growing in an exposed position, but in the middle of a wood on high ground, and the soil is not at all good.” The total contents of the thirty-two trees is 2857 cubic feet, an average of rather over 89 feet per tree. If 357 feet is deducted from the total for bark and small tops, it will leave a result of 10,000 feet per acre.
At Woburn, in a plantation called “The Evergreens,” on a very light sandy soil, Mr. Mitchell, forester to the Duke of Bedford, showed me a plantation made in 1882, well sheltered by surrounding trees, and wrote me the following particulars :—
“The number of trees planted was 160, of which 132 are now left. I thinned them a few years ago, taking out only dead and suppressed trees. The area of land is as nearly as possible 2 chains square, and includes a few old Scotch and spruce fir. I measured the trees in three classes, as follows:—
| 72 trees: 50 feet by 6 inches quarter-girth = 900 cubic feet. |
| 40 trees:„ 55 feet by„ 6½ inches quarter-girth„ 645 cubic feet.„ |
| 20 trees:„ 50 feet by„ 4 inches quarter-girth„ 111 cubic feet.„ |
| 1656 cubic feet.„ |
| Deduct for bark at 8 percent . 136 cubic feet.„ |
| Total contents of timber . 1520 cubic feet.„ |
| ==== |
This works out at 3800 cubic feet per acre at twenty-six years after planting,” say thirty years from seed. I may add that though these trees were planted close enough to kill all their lower branches, yet none of these had fallen, and a good many of the stems showed the same want of straightness which is so often evident in this
1 Quarterly Journal of Forestry, i. 64 (1907).