21 MARCH 1947, Page 17

The Age of Trees An ingenious arboriculturist in Surrey has

been arriving at certain conclusions which should interest the "Men of the Trees," who are reviving their summer meeting (at Cheltenham). He has been studying yews, the most long-lived of our trees. One tree, 850 years old, measures 21 feet in girth. Another, 150 yeasts old, when yews are thought to reach their full height, has a girth of four feet. From this it is deduced that a yew growing in normally fertile soil confesses its age by its waist measurement. You allow four feet for the first 150 years and then two feet six inches for each ensuing century. Someone should make a similar graph for other species. Though soil and clime would make wide differences, some sort of average could be reached.