1300 years;
that at Brabourne in Kent at 3000. De Candolle gives the following as
the ages attainable:--

The Ivy 450 years
Larch 570 "
Plane 750 "
Cedar of Lebanon 800 "
Lime 1100 "
Oak 1500 "
Taxodium distichum 4000 to 6000
Baobab 6000 years

Nowhere is woodland scenery more beautiful than where it passes
gradually into the open country. The separate trees, having more room
both for their roots and branches, are finer, and can be better seen,
while, when they are close together, "one cannot see the wood for the
trees." The vistas which open out are full of mystery and of promise,
and tempt us gradually out into the green fields.

What pleasant memories these very words recall, games in the hay as
children, and sunny summer days throughout life.

"Consider," says Ruskin,[34] "what we owe to the meadow grass, to the
covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of
those soft countless and peaceful spears. The fields! Follow but forth
for a little time the thought of all that we ought to recognise in those
words. All spring and summer is in them--the walks by silent scented
paths, the rests in noonday heat, the joy of herds and flocks, the power
of all shepherd life and meditation, the life of sunlight upon the
world, falling in emerald streaks, and soft blue shadows, where else it
would have struck on the dark mould or scorching dust, pastures beside
the pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes of
down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea, crisp lawns all dim with
early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by
happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices.

* * * * *

"Go out, in the spring time, among the meadows that slope from the
shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There,
mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass
grows deep and free, and as you follow the winding mountain paths,
beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom,--paths, that for
ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in
scented undulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with
new mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness,--look up
towards the higher hills, where the waves o