Of our English trees there is none so pleasant to chop as the lime; the steel enters into it so easily.
In the enclosed portion of the park at Okebourne the boughs of the trees descended and swept the sward.

Nothing but sheep being permitted to graze there, the trees grew in their natural form, the lower limbs drooping downwards to the ground.

Hedgerow timber is usually 'stripped' up at intervals, and the bushes, too, interfere with the expansion of the branches; while the boughs of trees standing in the open fields are nibbled off by cattle.

But in that part of the park no cattle had fed in the memory of man; so that the lower limbs, drooping by their own weight, came arching to the turf.

Each tree thus made a perfect bower.
The old woodmen who worked in the Chace told me it used to be said that elm ought only to be thrown on two days of the year--_i.e._ the 31st of December and the 1st of January.