age" (turning out pigs on the Crown property).

In old days the oak timbers of which our battleships were constructed
were supplied from the New Forest; and the saw-pit in which the
timbers of the _Victory_ were sawn by hand is still to be seen in
Burley New Plantation. But Government methods appear to have been
generally conducted in later times somewhat on the independent lines
which distinguished them in the Great War. Some years ago it was said
that a department requiring oak timber advertised for tenders in a
newspaper, in which also appeared an advertisement of another
department offering oak for sale. A dealer who obtained an option to
purchase from the latter, submitted a tender to the former, succeeded
in obtaining the business, and cleared a large profit.

The oak has figured repeatedly in English history and occupies a
unique place in our national tradition, commencing with its Druidical
worship as a sacred tree. It was from an oak that the arrow of Walter
Tyrrel which struck down William Rufus is said to have glanced, and
Magna Charta was signed beneath an oak by the unwilling hand of King
John. It is associated in all ages with preachings, political
meetings, and with parish and county boundaries. These boundary oaks
were called Gospel-trees, it is said, because the gospel for the day
was read beneath them by the parochial priest during the annual
perambulation of the parish boundaries by the leading inhabitants in
Rogation week. Herrick alludes to the practice in the lines addressed
to Anthea in _Hesperides_:

"Dearest, bury me
Under that Holy-oke or Gospel-tree,
Where (though thou see'st not) thou may'st think upon
Me, when thou yeerly go'st Procession."

But perhaps the oak that appeals most to the lively imagination
venerating old tales of merry England, and with whose story generous
hearts are most in sympathy, is that

"Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And hummed a surly hymn."

The beech is not a common tree in the Vale of Evesham, preferring the
dryer soils of the Cotswold Hills. It is said to have been introduced
by the Romans, and is familiar as the tree mentioned by Virgil in the
opening line of his first Pastoral:

"_Tityre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi_;"

the metre, and the words of which, apart from their signification,
suggest so accurately the pattering of