Historic Trees.

Progress, Volume XIV, Issue 8, 1 April 1919, Page 484

Historic Trees.

Sacrificed to the War. The Avar made a phenomenal drain on the forests of France and England. Timber was required in enormous quantities for military purposes, and some of the most precious of trees, trees with great history interest have had to be destroyed. One of the most picturesque and memorable pieces of work by the Canadian Forester Corps in England was the felling of the "William the Conqueror Oak,'.' which stood beneath the king's window at Windsor. For several reasons this was perhaps the most remarkable tree in the British Isles. It was more than 1000 years old. Authentic records show that it was standing as long ago as 900 A.D. The tree was thirty-eight and one-half feet in diameter at the base.

It was felled at the request of the king. Its heart was rotten, but it was still bearing foliage and yearly adding new wood. Care had been exercised through the centuries to preserve it, a circular fence screening it from the deer. It was sixty-five feel

high, with a wide, branching top. With all their experience with trees the Canadians hardly knew at first how to get it down. -Their ordinary crosscut saws are only five feet in length, but for this gigantic oak they need a saw some fifteen feet in length. Such a saw they ordered, and it was finally delivered, but not until the enterprising Canadian spirit had solved the problem. Into the heart of the trunk a hole was cut and a sawyer placed inside. The sawyer inside working with the fellow outside, cut gradually around the trunk until the ancient monarch fell.

The heart of the tree was cleaned out and the hole filled with cement to avert further decay. The wood is susceptible of the most beautiful polish and doubtless the main portion of the trunk will keep permanently. Some small souvenirs have been given away. Needless to say, they would command large prices if sold at auction. In a typically Canadian log cabin built for the king at Windsor, the mantelpiece'is made of wood from the old oak. There is not a nail in it. The logs, which are of larch, are fastened with wooden pins. The roof is of bark, the floor logs were hewn with an axe, and they rest on pillars. No plane was used on any part of the building. The larch was the only tree that could be found straight and large enough for the cabin.

• The Canadian foresters in Windsor park became acquainted with another extraordinary tree. It was a huge beech, with branches extending in a radius of sixty-eight feet from the centre of the trunk. Beneath its leafy roof on one occasion 2500 Canadian troops assembled for religious services. Melbourne Exchange.