Page "Tilford" Paragraph 16

::" We veered a little to the left after we came to Tilford, at which place on the Green we stopped to look at an oak tree, which, when I was a little boy, was but a very little tree, comparatively, and which is now, take it altogether, by far the finest tree that I ever saw in my life.

The stem or shaft is short ; that is to say, it is short before you come to the first limbs ; but it is full thirty feet round, at about eight or ten feet from the ground.

Out of the stem there come not less than fifteen or sixteen limbs, many of which are from five to ten feet round, and each of which would, in fact, be considered a decent stick of timber.

I am not judge enough of timber to say anything about the quantity in the whole tree, but my son stepped the ground, and, as nearly as we could judge, the diameter of the extent of the branches was upwards of ninety feet, which would make a circumference of about three hundred feet.

The tree is in full growth at this moment.

There is a little hole in one of the limbs ; but with that exception, there appears not the smallest sign of decay.