ones had now _regained_
10-1/2 inches.)
1888, 125-1/2 " 123-1/2 " (The transplanted trees in '88
had outgrown the others by
2 ins.)
1890, 133-7/8 " 128 " (The transplanted trees in '90
had outgrown the others by
5-7/8 ins.)
1892, 141 " 131-1/4 " (The transplanted trees in '92
had outgrown the others by
9-3/4 ins.)

Thus proving that merely transplanting is beneficial to oaks;
the benefit, however, being greater when the soil is changed
and more air given.*

[Footnote]
* The Earl of Ducie, who has had very large experience as an
arboriculturist, does _not_ hold the view that oaks are benefited
by transplanting, if the acorns are sown _in good soil._ In the
case of trees that show little or no satisfactory progress after
four years, but are only just able to keep alive, he cuts them
down to the root. In the next season 80 per cent. of them
send up shoots from two to three feet high, and at once start
off on their life's mission.
[End of Footnote]

From Lydney a drive of a few miles through pleasant ups and
downs of woodland and field, brings us to Whitemead Park,
the official residence of the Verderer, Philip Baylis. The
title "Verderer" is Norman, indicating the administration
of all that relates to the "Vert" or "Greenery" of the Forest;
that is, of the timber, the enclosures, the roads, and the
surface generally. The Verderer's Court is held at the "Speech
House," to which we shall presently come: but the Forest of
Dean is also a mineral district, and the Miners have a separate
Court of their own. That some of their customs go back to
a very remote antiquity we may well believe when we find the
scale of which the Romans worked iron in the Forest; a scale
so great that with their imperfect method of smelting with
Catalan furnaces, etc., so much metal was left in the Roman
cinder that it has been sought after all the way down to within
the present generation as a source of profit; and in the
time of Edward I., one-fourth of the king's revenue from
this Forest was derived from the remelted Roman refuse.

I have a beautiful Denarius of Had