In preparation for the visit of the British Empire Forestry Conference in 1928, the Forests Commission cleared an acre of dense undergrowth from a stand of tall mountain ash forest in the Cumberland Valley east of Marysville, which it then suitably labelled the “Sample Acre”.
FCV tree expert Alfred Douglas Hardy wrote in March 1935 –
“So long ago as 1896, Mr H D Ingle, then a local forester (later one of the Forests Commissioners of Victoria), repeatedly referred to the tall forest in the Cumberland Valley, easterly from Mt Arnold. Trees in that forest, he claimed, were well over 300 feet.
So, to him may be credited the finding of one just exceeding that, since one in his tall forest is the Cumberland Tree, 301½ feet, accurately measured.
The Chairman of the Forests Commission, Victoria, for years held the opinion that the tallest tree would be found in the Cumberland River of Tyers River Valley.
For those to whom the earlier record is not available it may be re-stated that in preparation for the visit of the British Empire Forestry Conference in 1928, the Forests Commission of Victoria cleared the dense undergrowth of Pomaderris, Tree-ferns, Senecio, Hedycarya, Olearia, etc. from an acre, which the Commission has labelled “Sample Acre”.
The measurements made by Mr Ferguson, of the Commission’s service in 1928, gave the following results:-
Total number of trees 27. Height measured with Abney level (or clinometer), average – 266 feet, tallest of the group – 293 feet. Girth at 10 feet; average – 13.S feet; largest girth – 17 feet 4 inches.
A mean of more measurements might have increased Mr Ferguson’s average. My own mean, using two Abney levels, was 303 feet. Subsequent theodolite measurement by Mr Mervyn S Bill, Forests Surveyor, being 301½ feet.
The girth of this tallest Australian tree is 20½ feet at about 5 feet 6 inches and about 17 feet at 10 feet from the ground.”
In 1947, the heights of the 27 trees on the plot ranged from a minimum of 232 feet to a maximum of 301 feet 6 inches.
Measurements made again by the Forests Commission in 1955 of the tallest trees on the Sample Acre were –
| Tree | Height. | Girth – 10 feet above the ground. |
| 1. | 285 feet | 14 feet |
| 2. | 283 feet | 16 feet, 6 inches |
| 3. | 301 feet 6 inches | 16 feet, 5 inches |
| 4. | 285 feet | 13 feet, 6 inches |
| 5. | 285 feet | 13 feet, 6 inches |
| 6. | 279 feet | 16 feet |
| 7. | 271 feet | 13 feet, 9 inches |
| 8. | 283 feet | 22 feet, 7 inches |
From: Ken J Simpfendorfer (April 1982). Big Trees in Victoria.
The Sample Acre only narrowly escaped the 1939 Black Friday bushfires when local MMBW crews extinguished the blaze.
Unfortunately half of its big trees were destroyed during a storm in 1959 and the tallest tree on the plot was damaged. Another major storm on 21 December 1973 toppled more trees and damaged the crowns the remainder.
The fallen timber was assessed by Peter Ford and Jim Sherlock from Marysville and a salvage operation was conducted with follow up regeneration treatment
The area was also impacted by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.
The exact boundaries in the bush of the original 1928 Sample Acre. and the locations of its tall trees are now unrecognisable today because of fires and storms.
Currently the largest tree, which was once 301 feet, 6 inches, has been reduced in stature to 288 feet, 2 inches (87.84m).
Alfred Douglas Hardy (1935). Australia’s Giant Trees. Victorian. Naturalist, March 1935. pp 231-241.
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/125728#page/295/mode/1up
Victoria’s Forests & Bushfire Heritage 