Henry thought it seemed a bit strange, but did as he was told. Teddy gave him a lift on his shoulders so he would be at the correct height. Henry spread his arms out and Teddy moved over to the tree and gave it a big hug. It actually felt rather good - Henry was convinced he could feel the tree breathing! Charlie noted where Henry's paws started and finished then Teddy moved round and Henry gave the tree another hug. It took Henry's little arms just over 7 hugs to get right round the tree. Then they set off back home before they could forget.
At home, Charlie opened his tool box and took out a ruler. He measured the distance between Henry's paws when he had his arms stretched right out from his sides and noted it was about 20cms.
"Now we just need to do a few sums," began Charlie, taking a pencil and paper out of his toolbox, "we're going to multiply your hug length by 7 because it took you 7 hugs to get round the tree, and then we are going to divide the answer by 2.5 which is the average length that a tree's girth will expand in a single year. Of course, this is a very rough estimate because, as we noticed with the tree stump, a tree can grow different amounts in different years. But for our purposes, this will do."
