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Title: Trees. A Woodland Notebook - Containing Observations on Certain British and Exotic Trees
Author: Maxwell, Herbert
Language: English
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TREES: A WOODLAND NOTEBOOK
GLASGOW
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY
ROBERT MACLEHOSE & COMPANY LTD. FOR
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, PUBLISHERS
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD. LONDON
THE MACMILLAN CO. NEW YORK
MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA TORONTO
SIMPKIN, HAMILTON AND CO. LONDON
BOWES AND BOWES CAMBRIDGE
DOUGLAS AND FOULIS EDINBURGH
MCMXV
[Illustration: JUDAS TREE (_Cercis siliquastrum_)
AT TWYFORD LODGE, WINCHESTER]
TREES
A WOODLAND NOTEBOOK
CONTAINING OBSERVATIONS ON CERTAIN
BRITISH AND EXOTIC TREES
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY MR. HENRY IRVING AND OTHERS
BY THE
RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
BT., F.R.S., LL.D. (GLASGOW), D.C.L. (DURHAM)
Sit here by me, where the most beaten track
Runs through the forest--hundreds of huge oaks,
Gnarled, older than the thrones of Europe. Look,
What breadth, height, strength--torrents of eddying bark!
Some hollow-hearted from exceeding age
(That never be thy lot nor mine!)--and some
Pillaring a leaf-sky on their monstrous boles,
Sound at the core as we.
TENNYSON'S _The Foresters_, iii. 1.
GLASGOW
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS
PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY
1915
To the Reader
The following chapters, which have their origin in papers originally
contributed to the _Scotsman_, are designed to meet, and possibly to
stimulate, that interest in British woodland resources which has so
greatly increased within recent years. The author's aim has not been to
present either a scientific botanical treatise or a manual of technical
forestry; he has attempted to describe the leading characteristics of
the forest growths indigenous to the United Kingdom, and to indicate
those exotic species which have proved, or are likely to prove, best
adapted to the British climate, whether as economic or purely decorative
subjects.
There has been in the past--there prevails to a considerable extent in
the present--confusion among British planters between the two branches
of wood-craft--silviculture and arboriculture. Silviculture or
forestry--the science of managing woodland to produce serviceable
timber--has been so grossly neglected in the United Kingdom that its
cardinal principles have had to be learnt afresh. Accustomed to rely
upon foreign imports for our timber supply, we came to look upon
woodland as a luxury, useful in so far as it provides shelter from
storm, cover for game and foxes, and ornament to the landscape, but of
negligible commercial value. Of this result the titles of the
associations formed for the promotion and study of wood-craft are very
significant; they are not styled Forestry Societies or Silvicultural
Societies, but Royal Arboricultural Societies. Ever since the days of
Tradescant and John Evelyn, British planters have excelled in
arboriculture--the skilful rearing and tending of choice trees and their
disposal singly or in groves for the decoration of parks and
pleasure-grounds. Now, however, that the world's consumption of timber
has overtaken, and bids fair soon to overtax, the supply, attention is
being directed to the extent of forest capabilities in the United
Kingdom. The development of these resources can be accomplished only
through systematic forestry, as prescribed in the science of
silviculture. We are the only considerable nation in Europe whose
Government neglects forestry as a source of revenue; we have,
consequently, immense leeway to make up. Timber of every description is
a crop of long rotation, exceeding, in some cases far exceeding, the
average duration of human life. One generation has to plant trees for
the advantage of its successors; but it is just that kind of long-range
altruism which chiefly distinguishes civilised from barbarous nations.
Let me not be interpreted as underrating the value of the work done by
arboriculturists. By the enterprise of our leading nurserymen, the
intrepidity and zeal of their collectors, and the eagerness of
landowners to embellish their estates, a vast experimental stage has
been accomplished, enabling one to form a fair estimate of the
adaptability of different exotic trees to the climate of the British
Isles. The results of this experimental period have been summed up
recently in the great work of Mr. Elwes and Dr. Henry, who have devoted
many years of strenuous labour to examining the conditions of tree
growth in all four Continents, and recording the behaviour of different
species when planted in this country. The extent and thoroughness of
their survey, and the critical experience they have brought to bear upon
the subject, give a special value to their testimony to the work of
British arboriculturists. "After having seen the trees of every country
in Europe, of nearly all the States of North America, of Canada, Japan,
China, West Siberia and Chile, we confidently assert that these islands
contain a greater number of fine trees from the temperate regions of the
world than any other country."[1]
It was high time that, in the material interest of the community,
endeavour should be made to establish an organised forest industry in
the United Kingdom. The Government, after many years of reiterated
enquiry and hesitation, have at last taken the first steps in the
establishment of State forest. At present, these steps have not carried
the matter very far; but great bodies get slowly under way; as one may
not judge the speed of an Atlantic liner by the rate at which she leaves
the harbour, so we should exercise patience during the initial stages of
what we hope may prove a great enterprise.
The newly formed Forestry Departments of the English, Scottish, and
Irish Boards of Agriculture have the results of experimental planting by
arboriculturists to guide them in their choice of species. The opinion
is sometimes expressed that British forests should be composed of
indigenous species, on the principle that Nature has indicated which
species are best adapted to our soil and climate. This is to overlook
the part played by chance in determining what trees and herbs should
form the vegetation of these islands. When the ice-mantle was slowly
being withdrawn, after grinding down the mountains to mere stumps of
their pristine stature and strewing the plains with glacial débris,
seeds wafted by winds and waves or borne by birds found a footing, and
those for which the conditions of soil and climate then prevailing were
suitable, established themselves most readily and formed the staple
vegetation. But those conditions have greatly altered since that far-off
time; vegetation itself is a main agent in changing the character of
the surface soil, adapting it to support growths of a different
character to those which first took possession thereof. It is,
therefore, no derogation to the admirable qualities of our native oak,
ash, and pine that it has been found to our advantage to cultivate such
exotic species as larch, spruce, sweet chestnut, and sycamore. Among the
vast variety of foreign forest trees introduced to this country during
the nineteenth century, it is almost certain that some will prove of
great economic value when submitted to scientific treatment.
I have endeavoured in these pages to recapitulate in a convenient form
what has been ascertained by experiment of the behaviour of foreign
trees under British conditions, relying, not blindly, upon the
conclusions arrived at by masters of the craft, as corroborated or
checked by personal observation of a practical and somewhat sedulous
nature, extending over youth, manhood, and old age.
Among those to whom I owe cordial thanks for providing negatives and
other material for illustration are the Duke of Northumberland, the Earl
of Radnor, the Hon. Hew H. Dalrymple, Professor William Somerville and
Mr. Gerald Loder.
HERBERT MAXWELL.
MONREITH, 1914.
Contents
PAGE
I. THE OAK 1
II. THE BEECH 16
III. THE SPANISH CHESTNUT 26
IV. THE ASH 33
V. THE LINDEN TREE OR LIME 42
VI. THE ELMS 49
VII. THE SYCAMORE AND OTHER MAPLES 56
VIII. THE PLANE 64
IX. THE HORSE CHESTNUT 69
X. THE POPLARS 75
XI. THE BIRCH 82
XII. THE WILLOWS 89
XIII. THE HORNBEAM 96
XIV. THE ALDER 99
XV. THE TULIP TREE 105
XVI. THE HAWTHORN 108
XVII. THE ROWAN AND ITS RELATIVES 117
XVIII. THE GEAN TREE, OR WILD CHERRY 124
XIX. THE WALNUT 130
XX. THE HOLLY 137
XXI. PEA-FLOWERED TREES 144
XXII. THE ELDER 152
XXIII. THE HAZEL 156
XXIV. THE AILANTO 159
XXV. THE PINES 161
XXVI. THE SILVER FIRS 174
XXVII. THE SPRUCE FIRS 183
XXVIII. THE CEDAR 190
XXIX. THE LARCH 197
XXX. THE YEW 205
XXXI. THE CYPRESS AND ITS KIN 214
XXXII. THE WELLINGTONIA AND THE REDWOOD 221
XXXIII. THE GINGKO OR MAIDENHAIR-TREE 229
XXXIV. THE ARAUCARIA OR MONKEY PUZZLE 233
List of Illustrations
PAGE
JUDAS TREE (_Cercis siliquastrum_) _Frontispiece_
AT TWYFORD LODGE, WINCHESTER
PEDUNCULATE OAK 2
SESSILE OAK 6
QUEEN BEECH AT ASHRIDGE 18
REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION FROM _The Gardeners' Chronicle_
THE CHAIRMAKER, BUCKINGHAM BEECH WOODS 22
SPANISH CHESTNUT IN SUMMER 26
SPANISH CHESTNUT IN WINTER 26
MANNA ASH (_Fraxinus ornus_) 34
AT WAKEHURST PLACE
COMMON LIME (_Tilia vulgaris_) 42
FLOWER OF THE LINDEN TREE (_Tilia europæa_) 44
WEEPING WHITE LIME (_Tilia petiolaris_) 46
AT WAKEHURST PLACE
ENGLISH ELM (_Ulmus campestris_) 48
WYCH ELM (_Ulmus montana_) 50
THE GREAT ELM AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD 54
SYCAMORE (_Acer pseudo-platanus_) IN SUMMER 56
SYCAMORE IN WINTER 58
FRUIT OF SYCAMORE (_Acer pseudo-platanus_) 60
HORSE CHESTNUT (_Æsculus hippocastanum_) IN BLOOM 68
HORSE CHESTNUT FLOWER SPIKE 68
ASPEN TREE (_Populus tremula_) 74
WHITE POPLAR (_Populus alba_) IN JULY 78
WHITE POPLAR IN DECEMBER 78
LOMBARDY POPLAR IN SUMMER 80
LOMBARDY POPLAR IN WINTER 80
BIRCH (_Betula alba verrucosa_) IN JUNE 84
BIRCH IN DECEMBER 84
WILLOW BY THE STREAM 88
FRUIT OF HORNBEAM (_Carpinus betulus_) 96
TULIP TREE 104
AT WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD
TULIP TREE (_Liriodendron tulipifera_) 104
AT ALBURY PARK
MAY BLOSSOM (_Cratægus oxyacantha_) 108
FRUIT OF HAWTHORN (_Cratægus oxyacantha_) 108
FLOWERS OF THE ROWAN (_Pyrus aucuparia_) 118
GEAN (_Prunus avium_) IN BLOOM 128
BLACK WALNUT (_Juglans nigra_ var. _alburyensis_) 136
AT ALBURY PARK
PAGODA TREE (_Sophora japonica_) 144
IN THE BOTANIC GARDEN, OXFORD
FLOWER OF LABURNUM 146
ROBINIA PSEUDACACIA AT WINCHESTER 148
FLOWER OF ROBINIA PSEUDACACIA 150
ELDER (_Sambucus nigra_) IN JUNE 154
ELDER IN DECEMBER 154
AILANTHUS GLANDULOSA 158
AT WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD
SCOTS PINE WOOD 162
FLOWER AND FRUIT OF SCOTS PINE 166
SILVER FIRS (_Abies pectinata_) 176
DOUGLAS FIRS (_Pseudotsuga douglasii_) 184
PLANTED AT TAYMOUNT IN 1860
CONES OF NORWAY SPRUCE (_Picea excelsa_) 186
LARCH IN SPRING 196
LARCH FLOWERS (_Male and Female_) AND CONES 196
FRUIT OF YEW (_Taxus baccata_) 206
IN THE YEW WOOD NEAR DOWNTON, WILTS 208
MONTEREY CYPRESS (_Cupressus macrocarpa_) 214
AT WAKEHURST PLACE
DECIDUOUS CYPRESS (_Taxodium distichum_) 216
AT SYON
GINGKO BILOBA 228
AT THE GROVE, WATFORD
AVENUE OF ARAUCARIA IMBRICATA 232
AT CASTLE KENNEDY, WIGTOWNSHIRE
ARAUCARIA IMBRICATA, MALE FLOWER 234
ARAUCARIA IMBRICATA, FEMALE FLOWER 234
The Oak
The literature of the oak far exceeds in volume that of any other tree,
and there is abundant evidence to prove that from earliest times it was
regarded not only with esteem for its timber, but with religious
reverence. Popular names of trees are uncertain guides; the revisers of
the Old Testament express a doubt whether the tree under which Jacob
buried the strange gods which he took from his household (Genesis xxxv.
4) was really an oak, as it is rendered in the authorised version, or a
terebinth; but there seems to be no question about the tree Homer had in
his mind when he describes Zeus as giving his oracles from the oaks of
Dodona (_Odyssey_, xiv. 328), for the Greeks held the oak sacred to
their premier deity.
Pliny (A.D. 23-79), writing about a thousand years later than Homer,
describes in detail the religious honour paid to the oak in Britain, and
asserts that the Druids, as children of the oak, were so called from the
Greek name for that tree, i.e. δρυς. We are able to check his
statements in one particular from our own experience. He says that the
Druids held the mistletoe as the most sacred of plants, provided it
grew upon an oak, which it did very rarely. It is still so seldom to be
seen on that tree that, although I have been on the lookout for an
instance for many years, both in England and in Continental oak forests,
I have never yet found one. Mr. Elwes, indeed, gives a list of
twenty-three oaks in England reputed as bearing mistletoe; but he has
only succeeded in verifying two of these by personal inspection.[2]
That the early Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles set as high a
value upon the timber of the oak as they did upon its mystic attributes,
must be patent to any one who has explored their ancient lake dwellings.
The framework of these artificial islands was made of massive oak beams
morticed together; these remain as hard and sound as the day they were
laid down in the water; while every other kind of wood used in the
interior of the structure--ash, alder, pine, etc.--has been reduced to
the consistency of soft cheese. Moreover, these people anticipated the
Admiralty in using oak for shipbuilding. All the many canoes which have
been discovered in connection with these islands (five were found in
Dowalton Loch alone) have been "dug-outs" fashioned from trunks of oak
thirty or forty feet long. If other and more easily worked timber was
ever employed for this purpose, it has failed to withstand the tooth of
time.
[Illustration: PEDUNCULATE OAK]
The application of iron to shipbuilding and architecture has done much
to dethrone the oak from its former pre-eminence, nor does its timber
command the high prices of a hundred years ago. But it has no rival for
dignity and durability, and very few equals in beauty, for domestic
architecture and public buildings. Moreover, signs are not wanting that
the supply of pitch pine and other cheap foreign substitutes for British
oak is not inexhaustible; consumption is increasing hand over hand, and
natural forests are being stripped far faster than they can be
regenerated. British oak, therefore, though it is under temporary
commercial eclipse, can never fail of producing timber of the very
highest quality, and, owing to its long span of vigorous life, the tree
may be left standing in the forest for centuries without deteriorating.
Those who desire a quick return from their woodland will hardly be
encouraged to plant oak from such a far-sighted consideration; but
forestry must always be a business of deferred profits. If ash be
esteemed commercially mature at seventy years, larch and Scots pine at
eighty or ninety, oak cannot be reckoned ready for the axe at less age
than one hundred and twenty, and it continues to improve up to two
hundred years.
Even allowing for the fall in value of oak timber and bark in recent
years, high prices may still be obtained for fine trees, whereof there
would have been far more in Britain at this day but for the excessive
drain upon our woodland resources for the Navy during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. In 1877 Messrs. Groom, of Hereford, paid £200 for
a huge oak felled at Tyberton Park in Herefordshire. This grand tree
stood 130 feet high, with a girth of 22 feet 8 inches at 5 feet from the
ground. It was felled after being struck by lightning and badly damaged;
but for which mishap the purchasers estimated its value would have been
£300.
In Kyre Park, Worcestershire, there still stood in 1907 an oak 113 feet
high, with a straight trunk of 90 feet, for which the owner had declined
an offer of £100 a few years previously.
In certain parts of England, chiefly in the eastern counties, the timber
of some oaks is found to have assumed a rich brown hue, instead of the
normal pale fawn. The cause of this is obscure; some botanists consider
it to be produced by a fungoid growth; others, that it is the combined
effect of age and soil; but, whatever be the agent, the result is to
enhance enormously the market value of such trees. American
cabinetmakers first created a demand for it, as much as 10s. a cubic
foot being readily obtained for the best quality. Unfortunately, brown
oak has not yet been recognised as occurring north of the Trent.
Botanists are not agreed whether the oaks of Great Britain consist of a
single species or of two. There are certainly two distinct races, as was
recognised by Linnæus 150 years ago, when he classified them, probably
correctly, as sub-species-the durmast or sessile-flowered oak (_Quercus
robur sessiliflora_) and the pedunculate oak (_Q. robur pedunculata_).
Roughly speaking, the native oaks of the eastern and southern parts of
Great Britain are of the pedunculate race; those of the western parts
and of Ireland are of the sessile-flowered type; but I have examined
the old oaks in the Forest of Arden, Warwickshire, and found them to be
durmast, while young trees, planted to replace blown ones, were all of
the pedunculate kind. In the beautiful park of Knole, near Sevenoaks,
there are hundreds of fine indigenous oaks, all pedunculate; but a
splendid avenue, planted apparently 180 or 200 years ago, has been laid
through them, and these trees are all durmast. I do not know of any
place where the contrast between the two species may be so easily
studied.
When grown in moderate shelter, the two kinds may be readily
distinguished from each other by their habit of growth. Owing to the
terminal bud on every shoot of the durmast oak being the strongest, the
stem and branches are much straighter than those of the pedunculate oak,
which puts its strength into lateral buds, giving the boughs that
twisted, gnarled appearance so characteristic of much English woodland.
In exposed situations, however, this distinction cannot be relied on,
and one must examine the leaves and fruit as tests.
The durmast oak bears sessile flowers--that is, without foot stalks; the
acorns, therefore, sit close to the shoot on which they are borne. On
the other hand, the leaves are carried on footstalks clear of the twig.
In the pedunculate oak these features are reversed, the flowers and
acorns being stalked and the leaves stalkless. The leaves, also, which
are more irregular in shape than those of the durmast, clasp the twig
more or less closely with auricles or lobes. The durmast never has
these auricles, but the other features mentioned are liable to be
modified, when recourse must be had to a less uncertain detail, easily
distinguished through an ordinary lens. The back of a mature leaf of the
pedunculate oak is perfectly smooth, without a trace of down or
pubescence; that of the durmast invariably carries some fine down, at
least in the angles of the leaf-nerves.
It may seem that these differences are of no more than botanical
interest; but they carry an important significance to the forester. The
timber of the two species being of equal quality, it is of course
desirable to plant that kind which produces the straightest timber.
Undoubtedly in this respect the durmast far surpasses the other.
Unfortunately, owing to the durmast oak bearing acorns far less
frequently than the pedunculate oak, British nurserymen have stocked the
latter almost to the exclusion of the durmast, seed of which can only be
obtained in favourable seasons, often at an interval of several years.
Nevertheless, the superiority of the durmast, especially for Scotland
and the north of England, is so great, that it is worth taking pains to
secure it.
[Illustration: SESSILE OAK]
The native oaks of the English lake district and of the shores of Loch
Lomond are all of the durmast variety; when opportunity occurs of
obtaining seed from these it should not be allowed to slip. Even in the
south, durmast oak has proved its superiority to the other. Besides
being far the handsomer tree, with richer foliage, it is generally
immune from the attacks of that curse of English woodland, the
caterpillar of the little moth, _Tortrix viridana_. "I have seen,"
says the Hon. Gerald Lascelles, Deputy Surveyor of the New Forest, "I
have seen a sessile oak standing out in brilliant foliage when every
other oak in the wood around was as bare of leaf as in winter."
Most writers on forestry follow one another in describing durmast oak as
suiting dry soils and pedunculate oak as preferring rich and moist soil.
That is quite at variance with my observation. If the soil of Surrey,
where the native oak is pedunculate, be compared with that of the
English lake district and the west generally, where the durmast is
indigenous, there can be little question which is the moister. The fact
is the durmast, being the more vigorous tree, is able to thrive in a
soil too dry and poor to support the pedunculate oak.
One word of counsel to planters on soil tending to dryness--never plant
oak forest pure, but let beech be mixed with the oaks. The importance of
this is well known to German foresters, who call beech the doctor of the
forest. Its dense foliage prevents undue evaporation under parching
winds and scorching sun, and its heavy leaf-fall in autumn creates the
best kind of forest soil.
No clearer example can be given of the failure of ancient oaks, not from
extreme age, but from the parching of the soil, than is presented in
Sherwood Forest. The giant trunks that stand there singly or in
scattered groups once supported a far loftier dome of foliage than they
do now. The branches have died back through the vigour of the tree
being sapped by excessive evaporation from the ground, consequent on the
loss of forest canopy and undergrowth. Within Lord Manvers's park of
Thoresby, formed long ago by enclosing part of the Forest, oaks of the
same age as those outside stand in close company with the fostering
beech, and clothed with dense foliage to the very end of the branches.
How often has one heard a forester, when a great oak goes "stag-headed,"
explain this as the result of the roots getting down to unsuitable
subsoil; whereas the true reason is that an oak cannot fulfil his
allotted span of years except when grown in close company of other
trees.
As might be expected, the oak, as monarch of the primæval British
forest, has contributed names to countless places, both in Celtic and
Saxon speech; besides a few in Norman French, whereof Chenies, a parish
in Bucks, may serve as an example. The Saxon _ac_, still current in the
north, but supplanted in the south by the broader "oak," is easily
detected in such names as Acton, Aikton, Ackworth, Akenham, in England;
Aikrig, Aikenhead (sometimes disguised by an intrusive _t_ as
Aitkenhead) and Aiket, which is a contraction of the Saxon _ac widu_,
oak-wood. Oakham, Oakford, Oakenshaw, Oakley, etc., speak for
themselves. In old Gaelic the oak was _daur_, in modern Gaelic the
genitive _dara_ or _darach_ is used, but in Manx and Welsh it remains
_dar_. Deer, Darroch and Darra are Scottish place-names retaining
respectively the old and new form of the word, the latter often
appearing in composition, as in Kildarroch, i.e. _coill darach_,
oak-wood. Still commoner is the derivative _doire_, originally _daire_
(pronounced "derry"), signifying primarily an oak-wood, but later
applied to woods in general. Hence the large class of names like Derry,
Dirriemore, Derrynabrock, Derrynahinch, etc. St. Columba founded his
monastery at a place called Daire-Calgaich in the year 546. Adamnan,
writing a hundred years or so later, glossed this name _Roboretum
Calgachi_, Calgach's oak-wood. After this it became Derry-Columkille,
the oak-wood of Colum of the Churches, until finally James VI. and I.
granted a charter thereof to a London company of traders, and the place
became, and remains, known as Londonderry.
The mightiest oak I have seen of late years, at all events the oak which
impressed me most forcibly with its mightiness, is one of the
pedunculate kind near the mansion-house of Panshanger, Lord Desborough's
place in Herts. It is figured in Strutt's _Sylva Britannica_; when he
measured it in 1822 the girth was 19 feet at 3 feet from the ground, and
its cubic contents were estimated at 1,000 feet. Elwes measured it in
1905 and found the girth to be 21 feet 4 inches at 5 feet. Following him
in 1913, but without being aware of his measurement, I made the girth to
be 21 feet 6 inches. This tree, however, is not likely to increase much
in girth, unless it grows burrs, for it is stag-headed and past its
prime. In this fine park of Panshanger I found two or three other oaks
with a circumference of 21 feet, but none so impressive and majestic as
the one aforesaid.
"The oak," writes Mr. Elwes, "rarely attains in Scotland the size and
vigour so commonly met with in England."[3] To that I make reply--"Give
us time!" Scotland, her resources drained by three hundred years of all
but incessant war which she had to wage in order to win and maintain her
independence, became and remained a byword for poverty among the
nations. Almost every shred of her woodland, once so vast, had been
consumed before the end of the seventeenth century, so that Dr. Johnson
was but drawing his bow a trifle too far when he vowed that in all his
Scottish travel he had only seen two trees big enough to hang a man on.
Practically no oaks were planted in Scotland until many years after the
Union of Parliaments in 1707 had inaugurated an era of peace and
security for north country lairds. "Give us time!" I repeat, and we
shall produce oaks in Scotland that no English magnate would be ashamed
to have in his park. Probably the tallest, if not the bulkiest oak that
I have seen north of the Tweed, stands close to the mansion house of
Blairdrummond in Perthshire. Elwes made it 118 feet high in 1906, with a
girth of 17 feet at 5 feet from the ground and a clean bole of 24 feet.
Irish woodland suffered as disastrously as Scottish from reckless
felling, but there can be no doubt about the size and quality of the
oaks that grew in Ireland in the past. The roof timbers of Westminster
Hall were grown in Shillelagh Forest, Co. Wicklow. These trees, no
doubt, were of the sessile-flowered race, but the forest has entirely
disappeared; and the great oak-wood at Abbeyleix, in Queen's County, is
composed of pedunculate oaks.
Besides our British oak, there are between two and three hundred
distinct species of _Quercus_ in the Old and New Worlds, many of which
are very beautiful trees, but not one whereof the timber approaches that
of _Quercus robur_ in quality. The foreign oak most commonly seen in
these islands is the Turkey Oak (_Q. cerris_, Linn.), a native of
southern Europe and Asia Minor, which grows to an immense size; it is
invaluable as a shelter for more valuable growths, especially in
maritime exposure, but for little else, as its timber, though very
heavy, is said to be perishable, and certainly produces an excess of sap
wood. "We shall say little," wrote John Evelyn, "of the _Cerris_ or
_Ægilops_, goodly to look on, but for little else."[4]
The ilex, or holm oak (_Quercus ilex_) is another tree which nobody need
think of planting for profit, seeing that it produces timber of little
value except for firing; nevertheless, it is one of the most ornamental
trees that can be grown. Planted in the open, and given some attention
in its youth to keep it to a single leader, it develops into a
stately-domed mass of evergreen foliage, quite distinct in character
from any other tree that flourishes in the British Isles. It would be
sombre, did the leaves not glitter delightfully in sunlight; and in
cloudy weather the wind sweeps up their white undersides and sets them
all a-twinkle.
Although a native of the Mediterranean region, it adapts itself
thoroughly to our climate, being perfectly hardy in all but the coldest
parts of our country, and ripening its acorns plentifully in districts
near the coast. Indeed, it is doubtful whether in its native region many
loftier specimens can be found than one at Rossanagh, in County Wicklow,
which, when I saw it in 1905, was 80 feet high. The tallest recorded by
Mr. Elwes stands in the garden of the Hotel Hassler at Naples,
measuring, in 1910, 90 feet high and 12½ feet in girth.
We commonly follow Roman usage in calling this tree "ilex," nor is it
easy to understand why Linnæus appropriated this name for the holly,
because Pliny plainly distinguishes between them, writing of the holly
as "aquifolium." In English vernacular this oak was known as the holm
oak, which is a corruption of hollen oak--_i.e._ the holly-like oak,
because it is evergreen and the leaves of young plants are spined,
though not so strongly as those of the holly.
Pliny has a great deal to say about this tree. He tells us that in the
Vatican of Rome there was in his day an ilex older than the city,
bearing a brazen plate inscribed with Etruscan characters, showing that
it had been sacred of old. He also states that at Tivoli there were
three holm oaks flourishing which were growing when Tivoli (Tibur) was
founded centuries before Rome. Now, considering that Rome was founded
about B.C. 750, and Pliny died about A.D. 115, it appears that the
traditional age attributed to certain trees in his day was as liberal as
it remains in ours. It would not be rash, however, to venerate the
splendid ilexes in the grounds of the Villa Pamfili and the Villa
Borghese at Rome as lineal descendants of the trees that Pliny loved.
In suitable districts near the sea the ilex is invaluable as shelter.
Once established, it stands the roughest buffeting of storms without
disfigurement. I am writing these notes within a hundred yards of an
ilex at Ardgowan, on the Clyde. It is about 50 feet high, and stands
isolated on a bare lawn, exposed to all the fury of tempests that come
roaring up the firth, twisting its boughs in the most violent manner.
Yet these are so tough as never to be broken, and the tree remains a
model of symmetry and grace.
At Holkham, in Norfolk, there is a large grove of ilex, called the
Obelisk Wood, the like of which for extent is not to be seen, I think,
elsewhere. At Tregothnan, in Cornwall, also an immense number of
ilexes have been planted in a long avenue beside the sea. It is
remarkable--unique, probably--but it is not an arrangement to be
recommended for displaying the peculiar beauty of the trees, which
consists in their massive foliage. The branches meet overhead, and as
you drive along under them the effect is gloomy.
Very near of kin to the ilex is the cork oak (_Q. suber_), which grows
all through the Spanish Peninsula and the Mediterranean region, except
in those parts where limestone or chalk forms the soil. Of all the oak
family, this comparatively humble member is of most importance to
civilised life, for no efficient substitute has been devised for cork in
some of the uses to which it is put. The annual consumption must be
enormous; it is wonderful how the supply is maintained. Having no
qualities to recommend it to the landscape gardener, the cork oak is
only fit for growth in this country as a curiosity, and there only in
the eastern and southern English counties. In the midland and northern
districts it may exist, but cannot rightly thrive.
Many hybrids have been reared from the ilex. One of the choicest is
Turner's oak (_Q. Turneri_), said to have originated in the Holloway
Down Nursery, Essex, in 1795, as a cross between the ilex and the common
English oak. It is of moderate stature, not greatly exceeding 50 feet,
and is semi-evergreen, retaining its leaves, which are of a bright,
rather light green, till February. The Lucombe oak (_Q. Lucombeana_) is
also sub-evergreen, a hybrid between the ilex and the Turkey oak (_Q.
cerris_), but is a much loftier tree than Turner's oak; the foliage
inclines in colour to the ilex, but the leaves approach those of the
Turkey oak in form, the under surfaces being clothed with white down.
This variety was raised about 1765 by William Lucombe, of Exeter.
Another remarkable hybrid, apparently between _Q. ilex_ and _Q. cerris_,
is the Fulham oak, of which the finest example I have seen in Scotland
grows on the banks of the Ayr, in the grounds of Auchencruive.
Although these hybrid oaks ripen acorns, they cannot be relied on to
produce exact counterparts of their parents, the offspring of
cross-bred seeds always tending to revert to one or other type in the
cross.
Of the forty-seven North American species of oak enumerated by Sargent,
none is to be desired by reason of the quality of its timber, which in
every instance is inferior to that of our native species; but three, at
least, have proved their value in this country as highly decorative
trees, owing to the rich tints of the foliage in autumn. These are the
red oak (_Q. rubra_), the scarlet oak (_Q. coccinea_) and the pin oak
(_Q. palustris_). These are all trees of great stature, the pin oak
having already exceeded 100 feet in height in England, presenting a
gorgeous display when its leaves turn scarlet in the fall. In Scotland,
however, the summer is not always warm enough to produce these fine
colours; in wet, cold seasons the foliage remains green till the early
frost blights it into brown.
Among oaks of the Old World, the Hungarian oak (_Q. conferta_ syn.
_pannonica_) and the Algerian oak (_Q. mirbeckii_) are the most
ornamental, and have proved amenable to British conditions. As a
curiosity, a sheltered corner may be found for the Japanese _Quercus
acuta_, a small evergreen tree with large laurel-like leaves, quite
hardy, but apt to be broken by snow. In the absence of flowers or
acorns, it would puzzle anyone to identify this tree as a member of the
great clan of oaks.
The Beech
Among all the trees of British woodland none excels the beech in grace,
vigour, and hardihood. It is not indigenous to Scotland; indeed, it is
only in recent years that it has been recognised as a true native of
southern Britain, its remains having been identified in post-tertiary
beds at Southampton, Cromer, and some other places in East Anglia.
Previous to that discovery, botanists had accepted Julius Caesar's
assurance that the tree he called "fagus" did not grow in Britain
(_Bellum Gallicum_, v. 12). But popular names for plants are never to be
relied on, and although it is certain that Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xvi. 6)
described the beech under the name "fagus," it seems equally clear that
Virgil (_Georgics_, ii. 71) applied it to the sweet chestnut. The
confusion arose, no doubt, from the application of a Greek word
signifying food to two species of tree very different from each other,
but each producing edible fruit.
Although the beech (_Fagus sylvatica_, Linn.) cannot be reckoned as an
aboriginal native of Scotland, it is long since it received letters of
naturalisation in that country, and has taken so kindly to the northern
soil and climate that it may no longer be considered an alien. Indeed,
it is in Scotland that the mightiest beech in the United Kingdom,
perhaps in the world, is to be seen; not the loftiest, but one
containing the largest amount of timber. This is the famous tree at
Newbattle Abbey, near Dalkeith. Eighty years ago the indefatigable John
Loudon measured it, and found it to be 88 feet high. In 1906 the equally
indefatigable Mr. H. J. Elwes took its dimensions, and ascertained them
to be as follows:
Ft. Ins.
Height 105 0
Girth of bole, at the ground 43 8
Do., at 1 foot up 37 0
Do., at 2½ feet up 27 8
Do., at 3 feet up 25 9½
Do., at 4 feet up 23 1½
Do., at 4½ feet up 21 11½
Do., at 5 feet up 20 3½
Do., at 6 feet up 19 7½
Truly an amazing edifice of sound timber; how long has it taken in the
building? Normally, the beech is not long-lived compared with the oak,
the yew, the Corsican pine, and some other trees grown in British
woodland. Its "expectation of life" does not exceed 200 years. When it
gets near that age it sometimes dies in a night, so to speak, expiring
suddenly while apparently in full vigour. At other times it gets
stag-headed, a sure sign of flagging vitality, and becomes infested with
parasites, especially the felted beech-scale (_Cryptococcus fagi_),
which administer the _coup de grâce_.
But the Newbattle beech is probably much more than 200 years old. Mr.
Elwes estimates its age at 300 years. It has adopted a plan for
prolonging its existence by allowing its great branches to droop to the
ground, where seven of them have taken root, whence they have sprung up
afresh and form a perfect grove still maintaining connection with the
parent tree. Some of these subsidiary trees are already forty feet high
and five feet in girth; and if, as is possible, they continue to
contribute to the nourishment of their parent, the life of the original
stem may be prolonged indefinitely.
There are at least three other beeches in Scotland taller than the
Newbattle monster--namely, at Hopetoun House, at Blairdrummond, and at
Methven Castle; but all of these must yield the palm to the Queen Beech
at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire. Mr. Elwes measured this tree in 1903,
and "made it as nearly as possible to be 135 feet high (certainly over
130), and this is the greatest height I know any deciduous tree, except
the elm, to have attained in Great Britain. Its girth was 12 feet 3
inches, and its bole straight and branchless for about 80 feet, so that
its contents must be about 400 cubic feet to the first limb."[5] It may
be noted in passing that elsewhere in his book Mr. Elwes has recorded
certain deciduous trees even taller than the Queen Beech. For instance,
on page 365 he mentions larches at Croft Castle, Herefordshire, 150 feet
high; on page 873 he records having measured an ash at Cobham Hall,
Kent, 143 feet high, and on page 1820 the height of the black Italian
poplar at Albury Park, Surrey, is estimated at 150 feet.
[Illustration: QUEEN BEECH AT ASHRIDGE
REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION FROM _The Gardeners' Chronicle_]
Beech timber is not held in high repute in the United Kingdom generally,
being hard, brittle and perishable under weather exposure, although it
is extremely durable under water. I have examined some of the beechen
logs which were laid to strengthen the foundations of Winchester
Cathedral in the extremely wet peat and shifty gravel which seam the
site. For seven hundred years these logs have lain in the ground,
faithfully fulfilling the function assigned to them of supporting the
Lady Chapel erected by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy in the last few years of
his life (he died in 1204), yet they are still perfectly hard and sound,
having acquired with age a peculiar wan pearly hue.
In the north we reckon beechen slabs to be the best material for
drain-tile soles in wet land. The timber is put to higher purpose in
Buckinghamshire, where the extensive beech forests about High Wycombe
and Newport Pagnell afford one of the few examples of systematic
wood-craft in England. The trees are regularly grown and felled in
rotation to supply the chairmaking industry, clean timber commanding, as
it stands, a price of 1s. to 1s. 6d. a cubic foot. It has been asserted
that the very name Buckingham is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _boc_, a
beech; but it appears in the _Winchester Chronicle_ as Buccingaham,
which indicates its origin in a family named Buccing, descended from an
ancestor or chief called Bucca, the Buck. Howbeit, we are incessantly,
though unconsciously, using the Anglo-Saxon _boc_, for it was smooth
tablets or panels of beech that formed the primitive "book." In like
manner crept in the term "leaves" of a book, because the foliage of
_papyrus_ preceded paper, which is the same word.
The beech is distinguished for three qualities beyond every other native
of British woodland. First, by its abundant leaf-fall it promotes the
formation of forest _humus_--the rich vegetable soil so essential to
vigorous tree growth--more speedily and effectively than any other tree.
Secondly, it bears shade better than any other broad-leaved tree;
indeed, the only trees of any kind that approach it in this respect are
the hornbeam and the silver fir. These two qualities make the beech best
of all trees for under-planting; for, while the young beeches nourish
the older trees by their leaf-fall and by checking evaporation from the
soil, they are themselves preparing as a successional crop for the time
when the old trees are ripe for felling. The third distinguishing
quality of the beech is its unrivalled merit as firewood. None other
throws out so much heat or burns so steadily; though it is a curious
fact that the hornbeam, belonging to a different genus from the beech,
mimics it in its foliage, is nearly as patient of overhead shade,
produces timber closely resembling that of beech in appearance and
quality, and, as fuel, yields very nearly as much heat.
Besides the felted beech louse, _Cryptococcus fagi_, referred to above,
the beech is liable to be attacked when young by the deadly fungus
_Nectria ditissima_. The trees affected should be felled and burnt so
soon as the canker characteristic of that plague manifests itself, for
they never can recover. The singular disease called "beech-snap," which
causes the stem to break off abruptly at 15 or 20 feet from the ground,
is attributable to the fungus _Polyporus adustus_, though _Nectria_ is
generally present also on the trees affected.
The common beech has sported into many varieties. Those most commonly
planted are the purple and copper beeches, which are far from being the
same, as many people seem to think they are. A well-grown purple beech,
such as that near the south-west corner of Osterley House, Isleworth (to
name one out of very many fine specimens which exist in the United
Kingdom), is a truly magnificent object, the rich, but subdued, depth of
colour showing in charming contrast with other foliage, yet so soft as
never to jar with it. This variety is said to have originated in a
forest in the canton of Zurich, where, according to the legend, five
brothers fought, three of whom fell, and from the soil where each lay
grew a purple-leaved beech.
As for the copper beech, had I the chance of stopping the supply, I
should not hesitate to do so, for the foliage, as I think, has a
disagreeable metallic hue that consorts well with nothing else. Before
purchasing young purple beeches, it is prudent to visit the nursery when
they are in leaf, or you may be served with copper beeches, and not
discover the mistake till it is too late. The mast or seed of both
purple and copper beeches yield a large proportion of seedlings in the
parental livery; but no beech, green or purple, bears mast till it is at
least forty years old.
The fern-leafed beech is no improvement on the type, and grows with the
ungraceful pose of a grafted plant; but the weeping beech, which also
has to be propagated by grafts, sometimes develops into an object of
great beauty.
Of three or four exotic species of beech in the Northern Hemisphere
there is but one, the American beech (_F. ferruginea_), which would be a
gain to ornamental planting in the British Isles. Our own beech has a
pretty bark, but that of the American species outshines it as silver
does pewter. Unluckily, like many other growths of the Eastern States,
it fails utterly to accommodate itself to the British climate. Visitors
to Boston, Massachusetts, should not fail to see the group of beeches in
the Arnold Arboretum at Brookline.
[Illustration: THE CHAIRMAKER, BUCKINGHAM BEECH WOODS]
There are seventeen species of beech native of South America and
Australasia. These have now been classified as a distinct genus,
_Nothofagus_, that is, southern beech. Two of them appear to agree with
British soil and climate, namely, the evergreen _N. betuloides_, whereof
I have no experience, and the deciduous _N. obliqua_, of which two
seedlings, raised from seed brought from Chile by Mr. Elwes in 1902,
were sent me from Kew in 1906 to experiment on their hardiness. These
have grown vigorously, having endured 20° of frost without wincing, and
are now [1914] about 20 feet high; but, owing to their leafing fully a
fortnight earlier than our native beech, they are more apt to be seared
by late frost. In its native country this species equals our own beech
in stature and bulk, its timber being largely used for railway sleepers,
building, etc. Moreover, judging from the very few young plants in this
country, it is an exceedingly ornamental tree. Of the other southern
species, six are large evergreen trees, natives of Australia, New
Zealand and Tasmania, not capable of enduring the British climate,
except, perhaps, in the mildest districts of the south and west.
There are still, I believe, among the loyal subjects of King George V.
persons who profess to be Jacobites, as there are undoubtedly thousands
who cherish the memory of Prince Charles Edward as a precious national
heritage. For these, the beeches that droop over the swift-running
Arkaig at Lochiel's place of Achnacarry must have a mournful
significance. In the spring of 1745, Donald Cameron of Lochiel, already
advanced in years, was busy, in common with many other Scottish lairds,
in developing the resources of his estates by draining, reclaiming, and
planting trees. The union of the English and Scottish Legislatures had
brought peace and security to the northern kingdom such as it had not
known since the death of Alexander III. in 1286, and landowners felt
encouraged for the first time to apply themselves to useful enterprise.
Suddenly Prince Charlie landed at Borrodale on 28th July, and summoned
Lochiel and the other Highland chiefs to his standard. Lochiel, well
knowing the hopelessness of the enterprise, started to obey the summons,
thoroughly determined to dissuade the Prince from going forward with it.
His brother, John Cameron of Fassifern, begged him not to meet the
Prince. "For," said he, "I know you far better than you know yourself,
and if the Prince once sets eyes upon you, he will make you do what he
pleases." Fassifern was but too just in his forecast. It happened
exactly as he had said. Lochiel at first flatly refused to bring out his
clan; but in the end yielded to the Prince's persuasion, returned home,
marshalled fourteen hundred men, and took part in all the phases of that
hare-brained campaign, till he was carried off the field of Culloden
severely wounded.
During Lochiel's absence a quantity of young beech trees had arrived at
Achnacarry from the south to his order. They were heeled in a long row
beside the river, awaiting his instructions. But the chief "came back to
Lochaber no more." He lingered a couple of years in exile, his estates
forfeited, his person proclaimed, and he died in 1748. The beeches were
never removed from the trench where they had been set to await his
return. They have grown up in a rank of silvery stems, so closely
serried that between some of them a man's body may not pass. Winds of
winter wail a coronach among the bare boughs; in summer the leafy
branches stoop low upon the hurrying water; at the sunniest noontide
there reigns deep gloom under that crowded grove. No more pathetic
memorial could be designed for a lost cause and for him whom men spoke
of as "the gentle Lochiel."
The Spanish Chestnut
The sweet or Spanish chestnut (_Castanea sativa_, Miller) cannot be
reckoned indigenous to the British Isles, nor is there any evidence in
support of the common belief that it was introduced during the Roman
occupation. It is, however, far from improbable that the Roman colonists
sowed some of the fruit which they imported as food, and, finding that
the young trees took kindly to our soil and climate, continued to
cultivate them.
[Illustration: SPANISH CHESTNUT IN WINTER]
[Illustration: SPANISH CHESTNUT IN SUMMER]
Chestnuts, now as then, form an important part of the winter diet of
country folk in Italy and Spain, being ground into flour, whence
excellent cakes and pottage are made. British housewives regard them
only as a luxury, and large quantities are imported into this country
annually; but chestnuts are as nutritive and wholesome as they are
palatable, and there are few more appetising odours than that wafted
from the charcoal stove of the itinerant vendor of chestnuts, a familiar
figure in London streets so soon as chill October draws to a close. I
may confess to having partaken, under cloud of night, of this wayside
delicacy; nor do I care how soon the opportunity presents itself of
repeating the treat.
Chestnuts ripen well and regularly in the southern English counties,
though they are considerably smaller than those imported from the
Continent. In Scotland we seldom have enough summer heat to bring them
to maturity. The summers of 1911 and 1914, indeed, were long enough and
hot enough to ripen them; but even so the nuts were so small that there
was more patience than profit in collecting them.
Even though we cannot actually trace the introduction of this noble tree
to our Roman conquerors, there is proof in Anglo-Saxon literature that
it was known in England before the Norman conquest, for it receives
mention by an early writer as the "cisten" or "cyst-beam," "cisten"
being but a form of the Latin _castanea_. Chaucer (1340-1400) is the
earliest English poet to mention it, the list of trees wherein he
includes it being a very interesting one as showing the nature of
English woodland in the fourteenth century.
As oke, firre, birche, aspe, elder, elme, poplere,
Willow, holm,[6] plane,[7] boxe, chesten, laure,
Maple, thorne, beche, awe, hasel, whipultre,[8]
How they were felde shall not be tolde by me.
The right English name is, therefore, "chesten"; modern usage has added
"nut," which is as irrational as it would be to speak of a "hazel-nut"
to indicate a hazel or a "fircone" to indicate a fir.
Shakespeare, of course, was quite familiar both with the tree and its
fruit. Thus one of the witches in _Macbeth_:
A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And mounched and mounched and mounched.
"Give me," quoth I.
"Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Moreover, the chestnut had been long enough established in England to
have its name borrowed to denote a rich shade of russet. So in _As You
Like It_:
_Rosalind._ I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.
_Celia._ An excellent colour; your chestnut was ever the only
colour.
The Spanish chestnut is essentially a southern growth, being found wild
only in Southern Europe, Algeria, Asia Minor, and Northern Persia. It is
remarkable, therefore, that it should thrive so well in the British
Isles, even in the northern part thereof; for although, as aforesaid, it
is shy of fruiting in Scotland, it grows to enormous proportions in that
country.
Probably the tallest chestnut north of the Tweed is one at Yester, in
East Lothian, which in 1908 measured 112 feet high by 18 feet 8 inches
in girth. Next to it comes a fine tree at Marchmont, in Berwickshire,
102 feet high by 14½ in girth, with a clear bole of 32 feet. Still
further north, there is a huge fellow at Castle Leod, in Ross-shire,
which, though only 76 feet high, girths no less than 21 feet 4 inches at
5 feet from the ground.
The finest chestnut I have seen anywhere is in the woodland of Thoresby
Park, near Nottingham, being within the bounds of the ancient Sherwood
Forest. In 1904 it was 110 feet high, with a straight bole quite clear
of branches for 70 feet. Its cubic contents in timber were estimated at
300 feet. Loudon measured this tree in 1837 and found it to be 70 feet
high, with a girth of only 11 feet at 1 foot from the ground. Its girth
at that height is now over 17 feet. It is impossible to imagine a more
perfect specimen of the species than this beautiful tree. It was planted
about the year 1730, and is, therefore, now, say, 180 years old.
Planters may accept a lesson from this tree, which has been drawn up to
its fine stature by being grown in close forest among beeches, some of
which, of the same height as itself, have been cleared away to show its
fine proportions. Without such discipline, it might have expended its
vigour in building up an enormously swollen trunk, instead of towering
to its present height.
This tendency towards breadth instead of height may be seen in countless
places, both in England and Scotland. The Trysting Tree at Bemersyde,
the massive pair in Mr. Wallace's garden at Lochryan, and the great
chestnut at Myres Castle, in Fife (19 feet 9 inches in girth), are
examples in point. At Deepdene, in Surrey, there stands a tree of this
character, the clear bole being only 8 feet high, but girthing
26½ feet _at the narrowest part_. Near to it is one of nobler
proportions--90 feet high, with a girth of 21 feet 5 inches.
There is one characteristic of the chestnut which, while it adds much to
the beauty of the grove, certainly detracts from the value of the
timber. Just as one may see in a Gothic cloister how the architect,
wearying of straight columns, introduces here and there a twisted one,
so the trunk of the chestnut often grows in a regularly spiral manner.
Economically and commercially, the timber of Spanish chestnut, up to a
certain age, is no whit inferior to that of the oak--superior, indeed,
in its young stages, owing to its producing less sap wood. Chestnut
palings, gates, etc., are the most durable that can be made of any
British-grown wood. In 1907 Lord Ducie exhibited at the Gloucestershire
Agricultural Show some fencing posts made from chestnuts which he
planted in 1855 and felled in 1885. These posts remained perfectly sound
after exposure to wind and weather for two and twenty years.
Not only in durability, but in other qualities, the timber of chestnut
is fully equal to that of oak, which it closely resembles; and, as it
grows much faster and to a larger size than the oak, it would soon drive
its rival out of the market, but for its greater liability to one grave
defect, namely, "ring-shake." This is the name given to a splitting of
the wood along one of the concentric annual rings, thereby ruining the
log for the sawing of planks. The cause of this internal rupture is
obscure, but the injury takes place in chestnuts over seventy years of
age more commonly than in any other tree, and, as it cannot be detected
until the tree is felled, merchants are very shy of offering for a
standing lot.
As a coppice tree, the Spanish chestnut has no equal in this country;
the rotation of the crop is far shorter than that of oak, the poles are
more durable, and a steady demand has been created for an admirable form
of paling made up of split chestnut staves, set closely together upright
and bound with wire. This kind of fence, however, ought not to be used
in any fox-hunting country, for high-couraged hounds, attempting to
climb it, get impaled on the sharp tops and frightfully injured.
"Chestnut," it is well known, is uncomplimentary slang for a worn-out
anecdote. They told me in Philadelphia that the phrase had its source in
a theatre in Walnut Street, one of the principal thoroughfares of that
city. This theatre was built in rivalry of an older one in Chestnut
Street: its _répertoire_ lacked originality, and patrons of the other
house, when they recognised jokes they had heard and situations they had
seen there, used to hail the players with the cry--"A chestnut! a
chestnut!" And this explanation may serve as well as another. In this
connection I may be permitted to put on record a _bon mot_ by a
well-known member of the present Radical Government. We had been dining,
a small party, in the House of Commons, shortly after the late Sir M.
Grant Duff had published the third volume of his reminiscences, which,
it may be remembered, contained many anecdotes not told for the first
time. One of the ladies of our party expressed a wish to see
Westminster Hall, and, having been conducted thither, asked me what the
fine roof was made of. "It is of oak," I replied; "some people used to
think it was of chestnuts, but I don't suppose there were enough
chestnuts in England to furnish a roof like that in the reign of
Richard." "No," observed Mr. ----, "Grant Duff had not published his
third volume!"
The Ash
"Oh it's hame and it's hame, at hame I fain would be,
Hame, lads, hame in the north countrie;
Oh the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,
They a' nourish best in the north countrie."
The bard who was responsible for this ancient jingle assigned that
precedence to the oak which common sentiment has always accorded to it
as the monarch of British woodland. Economically, also, the oak held the
first place so long as Britannia ruled the waves from wooden walls, but
in this ironclad era our Admiralty has little use for oak timber, and
there is now no broad-leaved or "hardwood" tree that can be cultivated
so profitably as the ash. Indeed it is hardly doubtful that this is the
only species of tree, willows, poplars and certain conifers excepted,
which a young man may plant with reasonable expectation of receiving any
pecuniary profit during his lifetime. The properties which ensure to the
ash (_Fraxinus excelsior_) this superiority to all rivals are its
hardihood, the matchless quality of its timber for many purposes, and
its market value from a very early age.
First, as to its hardihood. No British tree, not even the oak, is so
wary of starting into growth before all risk of late spring frost is
past. Tennyson, the very Virgil among British bards for keen observation
of nature, has embalmed this characteristic in a beautiful passage in
_The Princess_:
Why lingereth she to clothe herself in love?
Delaying, as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself when all the woods are green.
Once, and once only, do I remember the prudent ash to have been caught,
namely, in 1897, when after a month of deceptive warmth, the mercury
fell to 10° Fahrenheit on the 22nd May. Twenty-two degrees of frost
within a month of the summer solstice! No wonder the young ash foliage,
which had been lured into precocious growth, was shrivelled and
blackened as by fire. And that, not only in the north, but in Herts and
Hants, as I had occasion to note when trout-fishing in these southern
counties. Even the beech and hawthorn fared no better, but their leaves
were seared brown instead of black.
Then as to wind exposure, what tree can compare with the ash for length
and strength of anchorage against the gale? It is astonishing to what
distance it sends its tough roots, whether they run through free soil or
wind themselves into the crevices of limestone rock. This far-ranging
habit renders it the worst of all neighbours to a garden, and no ash
tree should be suffered to grow within fifty yards of ground where herbs
or fruit are cultivated.
[Illustration: MANNA ASH (_Fraxinus ornus_)
AT WAKEHURST PLACE]
For toughness and strength the timber of ash has no equal, even among
foreign woods; and it is always in request at a good price for
waggon-building, implement-making, and other purposes. Moreover, British
ash, properly grown, is more highly esteemed than ash imported from
other countries. Unfortunately, owing to our neglect of systematic and
economic forestry, as distinct from arboriculture and the management of
game covert, ash is very seldom to be seen grown under proper conditions
in the United Kingdom. It should be grown in woods sufficiently close to
draw the stems up to such a height as will ensure a good length of clean
bole. Standing in the open or in hedgerows, it sends out huge side
branches which destroy the quality of the timber.
In consequence of our misuse of this tree, which ought to be the most
valuable of all assets to British forestry, good ash timber has become
exceedingly scarce; although undoubtedly there are an immense number of
excellent stems in most parts of the country, which, if landowners
generally understood their own interest and the true welfare of their
woodland, would be felled and sold before they reached an unmanageable
size.
In one respect the ash possesses a merit superior to any other hardwood
tree, except, as aforesaid, willow and poplar, in that it reaches
commercial maturity soonest. Grown under forest conditions in good,
well-drained soil, it is most fit for the market at from fifty to
seventy years of age. But, as it is readily saleable from twenty years
old upwards, an ash plantation may be reckoned on bringing in some
revenue from thinnings long before the main crop is ripe for the axe.
For instance, I was lately offered a very good price for ash poles
averaging nine inches in diameter for the manufacture of billiard cues.
The regular supply is drawn from Switzerland; but could most easily be
furnished from British woodland if the necessary care were bestowed upon
the saplings. The trees should not be allowed to stand after attaining
eighty years of growth; for the timber, even if it continued sound,
hardens after that age, and, losing much of its characteristic
elasticity, does not command such a good price.
Homer says that the spear of Achilles had an ashen shaft, and all true
Scots should hold the ash in special honour, forasmuch as of yore it
furnished staves for their national weapon, the pike. It was from the
long ashen pike-shafts of Randolph Moray's handful of Scots that de
Clifford's cavalry recoiled on the Eve of St. John, 1314, after thrice
attempting to break that bristling fence of steel; it was through the
staunchness of his pikemen that next day, on the slopes of Bannockburn,
Edward Bruce was able to bear the brunt of attack by the English
columns, hurl them into unutterable ruin among the Milton bogs, and so
set seal, once for all, to Scottish independence and freedom.
It was probably owing to the high value that the Scots had learnt to set
upon ash timber, both for military and domestic use, that this tree was
more commonly planted than any other in compliance with the statute of
James II. (fourteenth Parliament, cap. 80), requiring every landowner
to cause his tenants to plant and maintain trees in number proportioned
to the extent of their holdings. This was in 1424; in 1573 it was
re-enacted, along with "sindrie louabil and gud Acts," by 6 James vi. c.
84; whereof the effect may still be traced in the landscape of many
parts of Scotland in the shape of old ash trees standing round
farmhouses and other homesteads. Often, where two or more farms have
been thrown into one, the trees remain long after the disused buildings
have been removed.
Belief in the medicinal virtues of the ash was very general in early
times, probably derived from the Orient, where the manna ash (_F.
ornus_) abounds. Yet Pliny, who recognised the difference between the
two species, not only recommended extract of the common ash as a draught
to cure snake-bites and as superior to any other remedy when applied to
ulcers, but solemnly affirms that he has himself proved that if ash
leaves are laid in a circle round a snake and a fire, the snake will
crawl into the fire rather than touch the leaves. Even sage John Evelyn
recommended ash extract to cure deafness, toothache and other ailments,
and, later still, Gilbert White of Selborne describes the superstitious
practice of passing sickly children through the stems of ash-trees,
split for that purpose, in the belief that, if the clefts grew together
again after the wedges were removed, the patients would recover. For
household purposes, ash provides excellent firewood, which burns as well
green as dry.
The tallest ash measured by Mr. H. J. Elwes in 1907, stood 146 feet
high, and was 12 feet 7 inches in girth 5 feet from the ground. This
fine tree is growing with many others of about equal height in Lord
Darnley's park at Cobham, in Kent. The tallest ash recorded in Scotland
was one at Mount Stuart, in the Island of Bute, stated to have been 134
feet high in 1879; but this has now disappeared. The loftiest certified
by Messrs. Elwes and Henry as still standing is a great tree at
Dalswinton, in Dumfriesshire, which, in 1904, stood 110 feet high, with
a girth of only 8 feet 3 inches. Sir Archibald Buchan-Hepburn, however,
claims to have one at Smeaton Hepburn measuring 124 feet in height and
11 feet in girth in 1908.
Weeping ashes have rather gone out of vogue, but they are very pretty
things if the sport is grafted on a sufficiently high stem and the stock
be not suffered to outgrow the graft, as it will do if not attended to.
By far the most successful example of this kind of freak tree is the one
at Elvaston Castle, near Derby, 98 feet high with branches hanging to a
length of 60 or 70 feet, a truly remarkable object, and beautiful
withal, as may be seen from the fine plate in Messrs. Elwes and Henry's
book. Although its requirement of a deep, cool and generous soil render
the ash unsuitable for London conditions, yet there are a few handsome
weeping ashes in that city, notably one at the south-west corner of
Bedford Square.
Like all our indigenous trees, the ash has impressed itself upon our
place-names. Ashby, Ashton, Ashridge, Ascot--the map of England is
peppered freely with such names; that of Scotland more sparsely, owing
to the preponderance of Gaelic in the topography. The Gael employed
several forms of his name for the ash, namely, _fuinnse_, _fuinnsean_,
and _fuinnseog_ (pronounced funsha, funshan, and funshog), whence many
names in southern and western Ireland such as Funcheon, a river in Cork,
Funshin, and Funshinagh several times in Connaught. But the initial
consonant soon dropped off, and in northern Ireland and among the
Scottish Gaels the word became _uinnse_ (inshy) preserved in the name
Inshaw Hill (Wigtownshire), Killyminshaw (Dumfriesshire), etc.; or
_uinnseog_ (inshog), recognisable in Inshock (Forfar), Inshaig (Argyll),
Inshog (Nairn), Drumnaminshoch and Knockninshock (Kirkcudbright). The
plural _uinnsean_ (inshan) has assumed a very grotesque form in
Wigtownshire, where there are two farms twenty miles apart named
Inshanks.
Liability to disease is an important consideration in regard to forest
trees, and the ash has the merit of being remarkably free from ailments.
The worst malady from which it is liable to suffer seriously is known as
ash canker, whereby the timber is rendered worthless except for firing.
Happily it does not seem very contagious; for I have known badly
cankered trees standing for twenty years and more without imparting the
disease to their healthy neighbours. The late Dr. Masters attributed the
mischief to the work of the larva of a small moth (_Tinea curtisella_).
That creature may start the injury, but it is certainly taken up and
aggravated by the fungoid organism _Nectria ditissima_. Although, as
aforesaid, the disease does not appear to be readily communicable to
healthy trees, it is not advisable to leave the unsightly invalids
standing. The sooner they are cut down and burnt the better.
There are between fifty and sixty exotic species of ash, but among them
there is only one known to me as specially desirable for ornamental
planting, namely, the Manna Ash (_Fraxinus ornus_), producing a
profusion of creamy-white plumes of blossom in June. This pretty tree is
the source of the manna of commerce, a sweet and mildly laxative
substance obtained by tapping the stem in late summer and allowing the
sap which flows from the wound to coagulate.
Manna of various sorts is collected from many different kinds of plant;
that which supported the Israelites in the desert is supposed to have
been an exudation from the tamarisk; but Sicilian manna is the only kind
that is recognised as an article of European trade. In Sicily the manna
ash is planted in _frassinetti_ or ash-yards, grown for eight years and
regularly tapped, till the main stem is exhausted, when it is cut down,
and a fresh growth is allowed to spring from the root. The active
principle in manna is mannite, a hexatomic alcohol, chemically expressed
as C_{6}H_{8}(OH)_{6}. The manna ash is not often seen in this country;
those specimens which are of any size are invariably grafted plants; but
a stock is easily raised from seed, which Continental nurserymen
readily supply. In Dalmatia and Montenegro, where this tree abounds,
drivers stick the flowers thereof in the harness of their horses to keep
off flies, which dislike the peculiar odour. A Chinese species (_F.
mariesii_) is near of kin to _F. ornus_, and is said to bear flowers of
superior beauty to that tree; but of this I can only write from
hearsay.
The Linden Tree or Lime
When we speak of a lime tree we conform to a corrupt usage, for the
right English name is "line" or "linden tree," linden being the
adjectival form of the Anglo-Saxon "lind," just as "asp" and "oak" give
the adjectives "aspen" and "oaken." The late Professor Skeat, foremost
authority in English etymology, observed that "the change from 'line' to
'lime' does not seem to be older than about A.D. 1700"; but he
overlooked the use of the modern form by John Evelyn, who, in his
_Sylva_ (1664), writes always of "the lime tree or linden," showing that
the change had taken place between his day and Shakespeare's.
_Prospero._ ... Say, my spirit,
How fares the King and his?
_Ariel._ Confin'd together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners
In the line grove which weather-fends your cell.
(_Tempest_, Act v. sc. 1.)
The root meaning of the word is "smooth," referring to the texture of
the timber, which caused it of old to be in great request for making
shields, so that in Anglo-Saxon _lind_ meant a shield, as well as being
the name of the tree.
[Illustration: COMMON LIME (_Tilia vulgaris_)]
It is strange that Tennyson, so sensitive to delicacy of sound, should
have used the modern form in his frequent mention of the tree. Only one
instance comes to mind of his preferring the more musical dissyllable.
When Amphion set the forest dancing--
The _Linden_ broke her ranks and rent
The woodbine wreaths that bind her,
And down the middle--buzz! she went,
With all her bees behind her.
The limes form a somewhat perplexing family, inasmuch as, of the score
or so of species recognised by botanists, several cannot be reputed as
more than hybrids or sports. The only species claimed as indigenous to
Britain is the small-leaved lime (_Tilia cordata_), and even about this
botanists are not of a certain mind. For instance, the joint authors of
_The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_ have formed different opinions,
Dr. Henry considering it to be "a native of England, ranging from
Cumberland southward," while Mr. Elwes fails to reconcile this with the
facts that no fossil remains of this tree have been identified in the
British Isles, and that he has never been able to find, or to find
anybody else who has found, a self-sown seedling.
There are many fine specimens of the small-leaved lime in England,
ranging from 80 to 110 feet high; but it has never been known to attain
the dimensions of the common lime (_T. europæa_), which, although it is
an exotic species, has made itself thoroughly at home between the
Straits of Dover and the Moray Firth, and is the tree which those who do
not scrupulously discriminate regard as _the_ lime tree _par
excellence_.
It would require much space to mention all the notable limes in our
country, for they were very extensively planted 200 or 300 years ago,
and, being long-lived, many of them have grown to great size. Mr. Elwes
gives the palm to the lime grove at Ashridge, Lord Brownlow's fine park
in Hertfordshire. These trees were planted in 1660, and average 120 feet
in height and 10 feet in girth. They have been grown in a close row,
only 12 to 15 feet apart, and have thereby escaped the defects to which
limes are so prone as ornamental trees--namely, spreading to ungainly
breadth instead of rising to height, and covering their trunks with an
unsightly mass of brush.
[Illustration: FLOWER OF THE LINDEN TREE (_Tilia europæa_)]
At Knole Park, in Kent, advantage has been taken of this spreading habit
to allow the formation of a very remarkable grove. The parent tree was
described by Loudon as covering a quarter of an acre in 1820; the boughs
have drooped so as to root themselves, and have risen again, forming
trees 80 and 90 feet high, which in their turn have repeated the
process, forming a second circle of trees 20 to 40 feet high, and these
again are engaged in forming a third concentric circle, the total
diameter of the grove, all connected with the central stem, being 36
yards. The great lime at Gordon Castle, known as the Duchess's Tree, has
behaved in a similar way; but, as the supplementary growths have not
been trained into trees as at Knole, the whole forms a dense thicket,
impenetrable save where a passage has been kept clear to the interior. A
tree of this description covers almost enough ground, if not for a small
holding, at least for an allotment, for the total circumference of this
mass of branches is 480 feet or 160 yards.
It is as an avenue tree that the lime is seen at its best, disputing
pre-eminence for that purpose with the beech. Moreover, although the
beech must be accounted the more beautiful tree, its rival has advantage
over it in the delicious fragrance of its blossom, which is produced in
great profusion, powerfully attractive to bees. Strange to say, although
the fragrant flowers are of a pale yellowish, greenish white, the honey
extracted from them is deep brown, darker than heather honey, and of
inferior flavour.
Fine avenues of limes are innumerable in Britain, many of them being
over 200 years old. At Newhouse Park, Devon, Mr. Elwes describes a
remarkable one, which was planted about 200 years ago as an approach to
a house which never was built. The rows are only 20 feet apart, and the
trees, which are only 10 feet apart in the rows, have risen to an
immense height, averaging over 120 feet.
Among other notable lime avenues may be noted those at Stratton Park,
Hants (Lord Northbrook's); Cassiobury, Herts (Lord Essex's), said to
have been planted by Le Notre, the designer of the gardens at
Versailles; at Braxted Park, Essex (Mr. Du Cane's), composed of three
rows on each side; at Wollaton Hall, Notts, and Birdsall, Yorks (both
places belonging to Lord Middleton). In all these avenues the trees
range from 120 to 130 feet high; but none can compete in length with an
avenue planted at Clumber by the Duke of Newcastle in 1840, which is
only 200 yards short of two miles long. Unfortunately, these trees were
planted far too wide apart in the rows, 31 feet from tree to tree, and,
having been afterwards neglected in the matter of training, have
squandered their luxuriance in bushy growth. To form a fine avenue
timely pruning is indispensable.
The lime, being more tolerant than the beech of drought, parching heat
and a smoky atmosphere, thrives vigorously in towns of moderate size,
and also in large cities where the chief fuel is not coal. The
well-known thoroughfare, Unter-den-Linden, in Berlin, corresponds to the
Mall in London. I have not identified the species with which it is
planted; certainly of late years they have been planting in Berlin a
natural hybrid known as the smooth-leaved lime (_T. euchlora_), which
has the merit of keeping its glossy foliage later in autumn than the
common lime. The trees in Unter-den-Linden are remarkable neither for
size nor vigour, but they provide grateful shade and verdure in summer.
[Illustration: WEEPING WHITE LIME (_Tilia petiolaris_)
AT WAKEHURST PLACE]
The atmosphere of Berlin is certainly not so hurtful to tree growth as
that of London, where poplars, planes, ailanthus, and acacia (_Robinia_)
are practically the only forest trees that can do battle successfully
with the parching heat and stifling fogs of that city; conditions which
the limes that used to stand in the Mall resented by casting their
foliage in disgust before August was sped. The limes in the Cathedral
close of Winchester afford an example of felicitous association of
foliage with noble architecture. Perhaps there is a remembrance of them
in Tennyson's _Gardeners' Daughter_:--
Over many a range
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers,
Across a hazy glimmer of the west,
Reveal'd their shining windows.
The smooth white timber of lime was once in much more request than it is
now. Pliny praises it as worm-proof and useful, describing how the inner
bark was woven into ropes, as it now is into bast for the mats with
which gardeners protect their frames from frost. These mats are chiefly
made in and exported from Russia. Lime timber, being less liable to
split than other woods, was the favourite material for wood-carving;
indeed, Evelyn writes of it as being used exclusively in their work:--
"Because of its colour and easy working, and that it is not subject
to split, architects make with it models for their designed
buildings; and the carvers in wood use it, not only for small
figures, but for large statues and entire histories in bass and
high relieve; witness, beside several more, the festoons,
fruitages, and other sculptures of admirable invention and
performance to be seen about the choir of St. Paul's and other
churches, Royal Palaces, and noble houses in city and country; all
of them the works and invention of our Lysippus, Mr. [Grinling]
Gibbons, comparable, and for aught appears equal, to anything of
the antients. Having had the honour (for so I account it) to be the
first who recommended this great artist to His Majesty Charles II.,
I mention it on this occasion with much satisfaction."
It is owing to the neglect of British planters and the consequent
irregularity of the home timber trade that this fine timber has been
ousted from its former pre-eminence by imports of other kinds.
In writing of the common lime, I have used the scientific name, _Tilia
europæa_ as conferred on it by Linnæus, rather than the more recent
title of _T. vulgaris_. There seems a special reason for retaining the
old name, inasmuch as Linnæus considered his own family name was derived
from the linden tree.
[Illustration: ENGLISH ELM (_Ulmus campestris_)]
The Elms
It is a matter of doubtful argument how many species go to compose the
genus Elm--_Ulmus_--owing to the uncertainty of distinguishing true
permanent species from varieties and natural hybrids. Foremost botanists
have differed widely on the question; for whereas Bentham and Hooker
recognised in 1887 only two true species growing naturally in the United
Kingdom, Elwes and Henry describe five native species, besides nine
varieties of the wych elm, as many of the English elm, and no fewer than
thirteen varieties of _Ulmus nitens_, a species hitherto classed as a
form of the English elm.
The distribution of the elm family is somewhat peculiar, extending all
the way from Japan, through Northern China and Europe to North America,
but not crossing to the Western States; nor is any species to be found
south of the temperate zone, except in the mountain ranges of Southern
Mexico. Of all the cities of the New World, Boston reminds the British
traveller more vividly of home scenes than any other, by reason of the
massive English elms which enrich the landscape. Pity it is that we
cannot return the compliment by planting the beautiful white elm
(_Ulmus Americana_), the glory of Washington city, for it does not take
kindly to our island climate.
The elm with which we are most familiar in the North is the wych elm
(_U. montana_), easily to be distinguished from the English elm by the
fact that it throws up no suckers from the root, whereas the English elm
hardly ever ripens seed, and propagates itself entirely by suckers which
it sends out as colonists to an astonishing distance--50 yards and more.
There are exceedingly few authentic records of the English elm ripening
seed in Great Britain; on the other hand, the wych elm sometimes
produces a prodigious crop. In the spring of 1909 this tree presented a
curious appearance. The foregoing summer had been a very warm one,
stimulating the wych elm to such extraordinary efforts at reproduction
that, before the leaves appeared, the trees seemed to be covered with
fresh young foliage, which was really the crowded leaf-like seed
vessels. In June these leaf-like membranes had become dry scales, each
acting as parachute to a single seed, so that, under a hot sun and a
high wind, the air was full of them--so full that they actually choked
the eave-gutters of my house. Each of these little monoplanes carried
the potentiality of a majestic forest tree; given a suitable
resting-place, any one of these minute seeds might develop into an elm
like those at Darnaway, in Morayshire, which in 1882 were 95 feet high,
with clean boles up to 24 feet. So great was the exhaustion following
upon the abnormal seed crop of 1909 that some of my elms were
crippled by it, and two or three died outright.[9]
[Illustration: WYCH ELM (_Ulmus montana_)]
To produce well-shaped wych elms, timely pruning is essential, followed
by close forest treatment, for no other tree spreads more wildly and
wantonly, and unless means are taken to keep a single leader on each,
the result will be very different from those lordly examples which
stood, not many years ago, on the banks of the White Cart at Pollok,
four of which were figured by Strutt in his _Sylva Britannica_ in 1824.
The largest of these measured in that year 85 feet in height and 11 feet
10 inches in girth, and contained 669 cubic feet of timber. Two of this
group were blown down in the great gale of 22nd December, 1894, and the
remaining pair were felled in 1905, being respectively 90 and 96 feet
high. The age of these giants was shown by the annual rings to be about
300 years.
The weeping elms which one sometimes sees in gardens is a variety which
originated in a Perthshire nursery about one hundred years ago. It is
very ornamental, though it never attains much height, being perfectly
flat-topped. As it can only be propagated by grafts, a sharp lookout
must be kept to prevent the stock outgrowing the scion.
The wych elm is indigenous over the whole of the northern part of Great
Britain, the largest recorded being at Studley Royal, in Yorkshire--105
feet high and 23 feet in girth at 5 feet up in 1905. As an element of
the primæval Scottish forest, the wych elm must have been held in high
esteem, judging from the number of Gaelic place-names commemorating it.
The old Gaelic name for it was _leam_, plural _leaman_ (pronounced "lam"
and "lamman"). Ptolemy's _Leamanonius lacus_ is now Loch Lomond, the
lake of elms, out of which flows the Leven, which is the more modern
aspirated form _leamhan_ (pronounced "lavan"); and we find the same
association of names in eastern Scotland, where the Lomond Hills
overlook the town of Leven. The Lennox district was formerly written
Levenax, which is the adjectival form _leamhnach_ (lavnah), an elm wood.
The rivers Lune and Leven in Lancashire (Ptolemy's Alauna), the Leven in
Cumberland, and the Laune at Killarney all seem to indicate the former
existence of elm woods on their banks. In the name Carlaverock is
probably preserved another derivative--_caer leamhraich_, the fort among
the elms.
It was long supposed that the English elm (_U. campestris_) was not
indigenous to England, seeing that it never propagates itself in these
islands by seed. Its presence was explained by the convenient device of
attributing its introduction to the Romans; but there is not a shred of
evidence in support of this conjecture. The elm of Italy is quite a
distinct species, according to Elwes and Henry, a fact with which
Shakespeare, though familiar with "Warwickshire weeds" (as elms are
called near Stratford-on-Avon), may not have been acquainted when he
made Adriana plead with him she believed to be her husband:
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine;
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
The English elm, however, grows luxuriantly in Spain, and ripens seed
abundantly there, the tradition being current that it was introduced
from England to the Royal Park at Aranjuez when Philip II. was laying
out that demesne. Dr. Henry, however, considers it not improbable that
this tree is truly indigenous in Spain, and that it is certainly so in
the southern counties of England, where, as aforesaid, it reproduces
itself only by suckers. Other examples are not wanting of certain plants
yielding to climatic conditions, by resorting to reproduction by suckers
and ceasing to produce seed.
Perhaps the most striking display of the true English elm to be found
anywhere is the magnificent quadruple avenue known as the Long Walk, at
Windsor. Many of these are 120 feet high and 15 feet in girth. The
avenue leads from the Castle gates to the statue in the park, a distance
of two miles and three-quarters. Taller individual elms may be seen
elsewhere, as in the grounds of King's College, Cambridge (130 feet),
Boreham House, in Essex (132 feet), and Northampton Court,
Gloucestershire (150 feet by 20 feet in girth). The last-named tree, by
the way, may no longer be seen, for it was blown down in 1895, but there
can be no doubt about its dimensions, which were accurately ascertained
as it lay on the ground. It was probably the champion of that
particular species in England; but it was inferior in bulk to the great
elm which stood in the grounds of Magdalen College, Oxford, until it was
blown down in April, 1911, pronounced by Mr. Elwes to be "the largest
elm I have ever seen and the largest tree of any kind in Great
Britain."[10] Mr. Elwes carefully measured the fallen giant, finding it
to be 142 feet high, 27 feet in girth, and containing 2787 cubic feet of
timber. He and Dr. Henry pronounce it to have belonged to the variety or
sub-species classed as the smooth-leaved Huntingdon or Chichester elm
(_U. vegeta_, Lindley), although in this case no suckers had been
produced, which the Huntingdon elm usually sends up in profusion.
It is usually stated in forestry manuals that the English elm is not
suited for Scottish conditions. My own experience is directly opposed to
that view, for, having some score or so of these trees now about 110
years old to compare with wych elms planted at the same time, the
English species exceeds the other in height and equals it in bulk. Two
English elms at Loudon Castle, in Ayrshire, were measured in 1908, and
were found respectively to be 107 feet by 15 feet 4 inches and 105 feet
by 16 feet 4 inches.
[Illustration: THE GREAT ELM AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD]
I have found, however, that by far the shapeliest and best elm for
Scottish planting is the smooth-leaved elm, formerly, and probably
correctly, considered to be merely a permanent variety of the English
elm (_U. campestris_), but now distinguished as a species under the
title of _Ulmus nitens_. It certainly resists violent winds better
than the English elm, being therefore preferable for sea exposure.
Moreover, its timber is esteemed more highly than that of other elms,
being remarkably tough. Dr. Henry has distinguished a variety of this
elm as _Italica_--the Mediterranean elm--which is the kind used by
Tuscan vine-dressers to train their vines on.
The smooth-leaved elm is of less sprawling habit than the wych elm, but
occasionally it takes advantage of space to spread out of all measure.
Of this there is an example at Sharpham, near Totnes, where a tree of
this species has covered the space of a quarter of an acre, some of its
side branches being 104 feet long. The total height was between 80 and
90 feet in 1906, in which year it was figured in the _Gardeners'
Chronicle_ as a wych elm. Mr. Elwes, however, pronounces it to be of the
smooth-leaved kind. On the other hand, the Cornish elm, which is a
variety of _U. nitens_, is usually of columnar habit.
The Sycamore and other Maples
"Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,
East wind and frost are safely gone;
While zephyr mild and balmy rain
The summer comes serenely on."
A north countryman, reading Clough's beautiful lines, is pretty sure to
apply them to the wrong tree, because, when a Scots forester speaks of a
plane tree, he is understood to mean what in the south is called a
sycamore. But even that is a misnomer, the true sycamore, mentioned in
Holy Writ, being a fig-tree (_Ficus sycamorus_).
[Illustration: SYCAMORE (_Acer pseudo-platanus_)
IN SUMMER]
The sycamore and the plane are quite distinct, belonging to separate
natural orders, the sycamore being a maple (_Aceraceæ_), the largest of
all the maples, and the plane constituting a single group in the order
_Platanaceæ_. The confusion of names has arisen from the success with
which the sycamore masquerades as a plane, imitating its foliage and
aping it in its habit of shedding the bark in thin flakes. Botanists
have given recognition to this peculiarity by the scientific title they
have conferred on the sycamore, viz. _Acer pseudo-platanus_, or the
false plane. But in its flower and fruit the sycamore cannot disguise
its true affinity. Its flowers are arranged in triplets on long hanging
scapes, of a yellowish green, only requiring a dash of brighter hue to
render the sycamore one of the loveliest objects in the spring woodland.
The flowers are followed by fruits which stamp the tree unmistakably as
a maple. The seed-vessels are composed of what in botany are termed
_samaræ_ or keys, each containing a large seed or two. These samaræ
are attached to each other in pairs, and, as each carries a
beautifully-formed membranous wing, the result is a pair of wings to
each pair of seed-vessels, securing wide distribution of the seeds by
autumnal winds. On the other hand, the flowers of the true plane
(_Platanus_) are very minute, and the fruit consists of a mass of thin
seeds set among closely-pressed hairs and bristles, forming a hard,
perfectly round ball nearly an inch in diameter. These balls, from two
to six on each fruiting stalk, hang conspicuously on the branches all
winter, until the dry March winds burst them and allow the seeds to
float away.
Neither sycamore nor plane are natives of the United Kingdom. The plane,
though it excels all other trees for planting in smoky towns like
London, does not take kindly to the cooler atmosphere of Scotland and
northern England. Not so the sycamore, which, although naturally a
product of the mountain ranges of Central and Southern Europe, nowhere
flourishes more freely and sows itself more abundantly than in North
Britain. Indeed, it is a conspicuous instance of the careless
prodigality of Nature how thickly every bare spot in a wood becomes
covered with seedling sycamores, not one in a million of which have the
faintest chance of surviving two or three seasons.
The life period of the sycamore is a long one, probably three times that
of the beech and equal to that of the oak. At Truns, in the Swiss
Oberland, a great sycamore, already in ruin, was destroyed by a storm in
1870. As it was under this tree that the Grey League, originators of the
canton of Grisons, took the oath in 1424, it can scarcely have been less
than 600 years old when it ceased to exist. Mr. Elwes gives the
dimensions of another mighty sycamore in Switzerland, growing at an
elevation of more than 4000 feet in the canton of Unterwalden, which
must be coeval with the tree of the Grey League. It measures 29 feet in
circumference at 5 feet from the ground. We cannot quite equal that in
Scotland, although in that country and northern England there are some
enormous sycamores. Behind the Birnam Hotel stand two very large trees,
an oak and a sycamore. The oak, lesser of the two, is shown to visitors
as the last survivor of that forest whereof it was said
Macbeth shall never vanquished be
Until great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.
[Illustration: SYCAMORE
IN WINTER]
The other is a giant sycamore, reported in Hunter's _Woods and Forests
of Perthshire_ (1883) to be one thousand years old, which, of course, is
impossible. I measured the girth of this great tree in 1903, and made
it 19 feet 8 inches at 5 feet from the ground. It was not until long
after that I found that Hunter had given exactly the same measurement
twenty years earlier. This girth is exceeded by one at Castle Menzies,
which, in 1904, gave 20 feet 4 inches. The loftiest sycamore reported in
Scotland is also in Perthshire, at Blair Drummond. This tree Dr. Henry
ascertained to be 108 feet high, with a girth of 10 feet.
At Kippenross, also in Perthshire, there remain fragments of a sycamore
destroyed by lightning in 1860. It was known in the seventeenth century
as "the Muckle Tree o' Kippenross," and was estimated in 1821 to contain
875 cubic feet of timber.
It would be vain to attempt within reasonable limits of space to give a
catalogue of the notable sycamores in Great Britain. Most of the finest
specimens are in Scotland; for no tree can be planted in our northern
land with greater security of success; it fears neither severe frost nor
reasonable wind exposure; but it insists upon well-drained soil. In
damp, low-lying ground it may appear to flourish; but in such a
situation it is sure to prove "boss" (to use a term in Scottish
forestry) or hollow at the heart when ready for the axe. In England
there are many sycamores of 100 feet and upwards; but this tree has
become much more closely identified with the landscape of the northern
counties than with that of the south.
As a forest tree, the sycamore has been treated with unmerited neglect
by British planters; though it is not singular in that respect, so
improvidently have we accustomed ourselves to rely upon foreign
supplies. We ought to bestow more care upon our sycamores, because not
only is it a tree that rapidly re-establishes itself by seed and is
practically immune from disease, but it produces timber which, when of
sufficient size, commands a higher price than any other British-grown
wood. That size is not less than 18 inches quarter girth, representing
sixty to eighty years' growth, and from that size up to any dimensions,
provided that the bole is straight, clean-grown and free of knots. The
main purpose for which such stems are in demand is for making large
rollers used in calico and wallpaper printing, in washing machines and
cotton dyeing. A few years ago I was shown a single sycamore growing at
Makerstoun on Tweedside for which the owner had been offered, and
refused, £50. The wood is also in good request for railway carriage
panelling, furniture, dairy utensils, etc.
[Illustration: FRUIT OF SYCAMORE (_Acer pseudo-platanus_)]
As an ornamental tree it must be owned that the sycamore does not take
high rank, owing to the monotonous tone assumed by its massive foliage
after the flush of spring has passed. Nor does it usually compound for
this by splendour of autumnal colour, as so many of the maple family do.
Indeed, this is one of the qualities of its near kindred which the
sycamore has discarded in order, it would almost seem, to simulate the
plane more perfectly and to justify its appellation of "the false
plane"; for the foliage of the plane falls like that of the sycamore
without any dying brilliancy. It is true, however, that old sycamores,
when sheltered from sea winds, do sometimes assume bright tones of
yellow and orange in autumn. At Keir, in Perthshire, a row of aged trees
of this species surprised me by their brilliancy in November, 1913.
Although, as I have said, the sycamore is remarkably free from disease
and from serious fungoid or insect attacks, it is the host of a
parasitic fungus which seldom fails to make its presence apparent,
though without perceptibly affecting the growth or health of the tree.
Readers must be very familiar with the circular black spots which appear
on the leaves about midsummer and continue till they fall. It is not a
few leaves or a few trees here and there that are so affected, but all
the leaves on large trees and on every tree in the wood. The difficulty
is to find a leaf without these black spots; so that people have come to
regard them as part of the regular colour scheme of the foliage.
Nevertheless, each of these blots is a colony of the parasitic fungus,
_Rhytisma_, whereof the life-history is still subject for investigation.
It is not evident how the colonies are regularly distributed, each clear
of the other, all over the leaves of a lofty tree, nor how, seeing that
they fall to the ground with the leaves in autumn, the fungus manages to
get access in the following summer to the loftiest branches. It is lucky
that, being so widely distributed and existing in such incalculable
numbers, these colonies do not appreciably interfere with the natural
functions of the sycamore.
The only native species of maple in Britain is the Field Maple (_Acer
campestre_), which does not extend naturally into either Scotland or
Ireland, though it grows freely in both these countries when planted in
either of these countries. It is a very ancient element in the woodland
of south Britain, its remains having been identified in pre-glacial beds
in Suffolk. It has no qualities to recommend it for ornamental planting,
and the timber, once highly prized by British cabinetmakers, has been
ousted from the home-market by imported foreign woods. When the Rev.
William Gilpin, author of a well-known work on _Forest Scenery_, died in
1804, he was buried, it is said, at the foot of a field maple growing in
his own churchyard at Boldre, in the New Forest. Strutt gave a figure of
this tree which he described as the largest of the species in England;
but he gives the height as only 45 feet, whereas Elwes records several
from 60 to 70 feet high.
A far more desirable tree than the field maple is the Norway maple (_A.
platanoides_, Linn.). The title "Norway" no more indicates its natural
range than the term "Scots" does that of _Pinus sylvestris_, for this
maple is found in most European countries and as far east as Persia and
the Caucasus. It is a beautiful tree, especially in autumn, when its
foliage takes on brilliant red and yellow hues; but it requires
attention during the first twenty or thirty years of growth, in order to
check its disposition to a straggling branchy habit. If that be stopped
by timely pruning, the Norway maple grows straight and free, attaining,
under favourable conditions, a height of 80 to 90 feet. Its timber has
not the ornamental character of that of field maple, but is said to be
of similar quality to that of sycamore. The petioles or leaf-stalks of
this species contain a milky juice, whereby the tree may be
distinguished from all other members of the genus.
Now, whereas botanists enumerate no fewer than one hundred and ten
species of maple, natives of Europe, Asia and America, it would be
impossible within the limits of this modest volume to discuss even the
most desirable of the genus. Among the North American species there are
several that grow to splendid dimensions in their native forest. One of
the most distinct is the red maple (_A. rubrum_), a beautiful object in
spring when it bears flowers profusely, which, in some varieties, are of
a charming red colour. There are a few specimens in England of the
well-known sugar maple (_A. saccharum_), but it seldom thrives in this
country, though it has been frequently tried since its introduction,
according to Loudon, in 1735.
The Plane
Among Scottish foresters the name "plane-tree" has come to signify the
sycamore; but the sycamore is a kind of maple, whereas the term "plane"
is rightly appropriated to _Platanus_, whereof there are four species,
constituting the natural order of _Platanaceæ_. Of these four species,
three are natives of North America; and forasmuch as none of them has
proved amenable to cultivation in Europe, they may be dismissed with the
remark that one of them, the button-wood (_P. occidentalis_), attains
enormous proportions in its native forests, rising to a height of 170
feet, and with a girth (recorded by Michaux) of 47 feet.
The fourth species (_P. orientalis_) ranks among the noblest hardwoods
of temperate Europe and Asia. Clear among memories of many sylvan scenes
stand a pair of giant planes on the flank of Mount Olympus, in the
leafless branches of which on a bright January morning a pair of
white-tailed eagles monopolised the attention which I was intended by my
Turkish host to devote to woodcocks in the copse below. Those who have
sailed along the Dalmatian coast will doubtless remember the harbour of
Gravosa, and the solitary plane that casts such a grateful shade across
the quay. But one need not go to the Continent for giant planes. In our
day it is one of the trees most commonly planted in the southern
counties for shade and ornament, and has no equal for the smoke-laden
atmosphere of London. It may be that it was one of Evelyn's seedlings
that Bishop Gunning planted in his Garden at Ely between 1674 and 1684.
This tree in 1903 was 104 feet high, with a girth of 20½ feet.
Messrs. Elwes and Henry give a photograph of it in their _Trees of Great
Britain and Ireland_, and consider it to be the largest specimen in our
islands of the cut-leaved variety.
Turner, writing in 1562, mentions "two very young trees" growing in
England, which indicates the middle of the sixteenth century as the
period of its introduction. A hundred years later, Evelyn says he has
raised from seed--
"_Platanus_, that so beautiful and precious tree so doated on by
Xerxes that Ælian and other authors tell us he made halt and stop'd
his prodigious army of seventeen hundred thousand soldiers to
admire the pulchritude and procerity of one of these goodly trees,
and became so fond of it that he cover'd it with gold gemms,
necklaces, scarfs and bracelets, and infinite riches."
The maple-leaved variety, usually known as the London plane, is the sort
most commonly planted in England, and rightly so, for it is more
vigorous than the other. Probably the tallest in England grows at
Woolbeding, in Sussex; it was 110 feet high in 1903, with a girth of 10
feet, and a clean bole of 30 feet. It would be needless to enumerate
the fine planes in and near London; one has only to look at the groups
beside the Admiralty and in Berkeley Square to realise how it thrives in
an atmosphere pernicious to nearly all other forest growths. Fifty or
sixty years hence the avenue of planes planted not long since along the
Mall will be one of the sights of Europe. The skilful way in which they
are being trained each to a single leader gives them a stiff, ungraceful
appearance at present; but this treatment is a bit of true
arboriculture, carried out in the teeth of bitter criticism. "Bairns and
fules shouldna see things half dune."
It is the absence of the conditions specially favourable to the growth
of the plane in London and the south that makes it unsuitable for
planting in the North of England and in Scotland. It is native to a
region of scorching summers; in London the sun's heat is reflected from
buildings and streets in a manner most acceptable to it. It will stand
any amount of frost it may encounter in Scotland; but it pines for want
of summer heat, witness the unhappy condition of those which have been
planted experimentally along the west end of Princes Street, Edinburgh.
I do not know of a single plane of more than mediocre stature north of
the Tweed.
The plane is nearly as late in leafing as the ash and the walnut,
thereby escaping the cruel frosts so characteristic of British spring;
but unlike the ash, it retains its foliage into very late autumn. Pliny
described an evergreen plane growing in Crete; but after the botanist
Tournefort (1656-1708) had searched the island in vain for it, this was
relegated to the category of myths. Howbeit, tardy justice was done to
Pliny as the prince of field naturalists, when in 1865 Captain Spratt,
R.N., was shown two young plane trees, retaining their leaves throughout
the winter, which had sprung from the root of a very large tree that had
been felled. He also heard of two others.
The Oriental plane has not been long enough established with us to give
an estimate of its longevity in Britain. In the Mediterranean region it
attains a vast age. Only a hollow stump remains of one at Vostiza, in
the Gulf of Lepanto, which in 1842 was about 130 feet high and 37 feet 4
inches in girth, and was believed to be the tree described by Pausanias
when writing his description of Greece in the second century after
Christ. Neither have we learnt to make much use of the timber so
plentifully produced by the plane, though it is said to be second to
none for the bodies of carriages.
In antiquity of descent the plane tree has few, if any, superiors among
broad-leaved trees, its remains having been recovered from the
Cretaceous beds of North America, besides numerous species recovered
from Miocene and Tertiary strata, in Northern Europe, whence they were
expelled when that region became icebound.
The London planes have been accused of being chief agents in inflicting
influenza, bronchitis and catarrh upon the inhabitants of the
metropolis. It has been seriously affirmed that when the seed-vessels
of the plane break up in dry spring weather, the air is filled with
minute spicules which act as an irritant upon human throats and noses.
It may be so; but before condemning the trees, without which London
would indeed be desolate, it would be well to ascertain first whether
the ailments referred to are more prevalent in London during the months
when the plane tree is shedding its dry fruit than they are at other
times of the year; and second, whether they are more prevalent in
London, where there is wealth of planes, than they are in cities where
there are no planes, as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, etc.
Unless this can be shown to be the case, it is difficult to reconcile
the fact that London has the lowest death-rate among the cities of the
United Kingdom with any mischief arising from the luxuriance of these
beautiful trees.
[Illustration: HORSE CHESTNUT (_Æsculus hippocastanum_) IN BLOOM]
[Illustration: HORSE CHESTNUT FLOWER SPIKE]
The Horse Chestnut
In one respect the horse chestnut (_Æsculus hippocastanum_) may be
reckoned among the most remarkable trees of British woodland, inasmuch
as, although it has been found in a wild state only here and there among
the mountains of Greece and Albania, where it enjoys a climate widely
dissimilar from that of Western Europe, it has a constitution so
cosmopolitan as to become thoroughly at home in all parts of our
country. It thrives as vigorously on the dry chalk soil of Hertfordshire
as on the soaked hillsides of Perthshire, and, given reasonable shelter
from violent winds, produces its magnificent foliage and flowers as
freely near sea level as it does at Invercauld in Aberdeenshire, where
there is, or was not long ago, a fair specimen growing at an elevation
of 1,110 feet, not far short of the practical limit of tree growth in
Scotland. In 1864 this horse chestnut was 8 feet 7 inches in girth, and
was believed to have been planted in the year 1687; therefore, if it
still stands, it is now 226 years old.
Another sign of the adaptability of the horse chestnut to British
environment is the freedom with which it ripens its large fruit and
reproduces itself from self-sown seed wherever it gets a chance. The
facility with which it does so has caused this tree to be deemed
indigenous in many parts of Europe and Asia where it certainly is not a
native, but where it has been planted originally on account of its
beauty. Further confusion has arisen from the botanists Linnæus and De
Candolle having failed to distinguish the Indian horse chestnut (_Æ.
indica_) from the Greek species, and having assigned Northern Asia as
the native region of the latter.
It would not be difficult to mention many individual horse chestnuts in
the British Isles exceeding 100 feet in height; probably this tree, if
subjected to forest conditions, would grow far loftier than that; but,
as it is usually planted exclusively for ornament, it is most often
found standing isolated, thereby receiving encouragement to develop
enormous side branches and to grow in breadth and bulk rather than in
height. Such is the character of a great horse chestnut standing in a
group near Moncrieff House, Perthshire. In 1883 this tree measured no
less than 19 feet in girth at 5 feet from the ground; but at 10 feet it
divides into three huge limbs, each girthing 10 feet, and covers a space
nearly 100 yards in circumference. The soil in this district is cool and
the climate humid, very different from the conditions at Ashridge in
Hertfordshire, where the soil is chalky and hot; yet there is in that
fine park a horse chestnut even more massive than the Moncrieff House
specimen, being about 80 feet high, and measuring 20 feet in girth.
Probably the loftiest horse chestnut in Britain, perhaps in the world,
is one at Petworth, in Sussex, which, having been drawn up in close
forest, now measures between 115 and 120 feet in height.
It is a pity that this noble tree does not more often receive
encouragement to upward growth, seeing that if the surrounding trees are
cleared away judiciously, that is not too suddenly, after the horse
chestnut has reached a good height, it then feathers down in the most
charming manner. It is very seldom that, without discipline of this
kind, it will put its energy into height, and attain the fine
proportions of a specimen at Biel, in East Lothian. In 1884 this grand
tree, probably the loftiest in Scotland, measured 102 feet in height,
with a clean bole of 40 feet. It is worth any amount of trouble to
secure this character in the horse chestnut, which is an inveterate
spreader if allowed licence; and the tendency may be checked by knocking
side buds off the stem in the sapling stage, and timely pruning as the
tree goes on to maturity.
As an avenue tree, the horse chestnut has few, if any, superiors.
Perhaps the finest examples in Scotland of this manner of planting it
are to be seen at Gilmerton, in East Lothian, and Drummond Castle, in
Perthshire; while in England the splendid double avenue at Bushey Park,
Middlesex, has long been famous, "Chestnut Sunday" being a noted
festival for Londoners when the trees are in full bloom. The horse
chestnut, however, is not a long-lived tree, and cannot be reckoned upon
to survive beyond 250 years. The Bushey Park chestnuts are failing
fast, many having died already and been replaced by saplings.
Talking of avenues, it is worth while to note a calamity described by
Mr. Hutchison of Carlowrie in the Transactions of the Highland and
Agricultural Society for 1884. He states there that in 1867 an avenue of
horse chestnuts was planted as an approach to the cemetery of Wimborne,
Dorsetshire, the trees being set 25 feet apart in the rows. In 1875 it
was thought to improve the avenue by planting yews in the intervals
between the chestnuts, which had this unfortunate result, that the
chestnuts, which had previously thriven finely, all pined away and died.
It is on record that the horse chestnut was first brought to France in
1615, and probably found its way into England about the same time. It
seems that it was expected to rank with walnuts and Spanish chestnuts as
a fruit tree, a notion which was speedily dispelled. John Evelyn,
however, with a right taste for sylvan beauty, early discerned its
decorative merit, writing about it in 1663 as follows:
"In the meantime I wish we did more universally propagate the horse
chestnut, which being increased from layers, grows into a goodly
standard, and bears a glorious flower, even in our cold country.
This tree is now all the mode for the avenues to their country
places in France."
Travellers in that fair land will remember with pleasure the fine use
still made of this tree beside some of the high roads. Between Tours and
Blois the wayside has been planted with a chestnut unknown to Evelyn,
for it did not exist anywhere in his day. This is the red horse chestnut
(_Æsculus carnea_), which seems to have originated in Germany about the
beginning of the nineteenth century, and is believed to be a hybrid
between _Æ. hippocastanum_ and the North American shrub _Æ. pavia_. It
is a most beautiful tree, the flowers being of a delightful shade of
bright carmine. We are told not to expect it to attain the stature of
the common horse chestnut, so it would be well, in designing an avenue,
not to mix the red and the white with a view to matching them in height;
but the red hybrid has already risen to 50 feet high at Barton in
Sussex, and I entertain an idea that this tree may develop into larger
proportions than is expected of it, when planted in good soil and
favouring shelter. At all events, some which I planted about thirty
years ago are now quite as large as common horse chestnuts of the same
age.
Mr. Elwes recommends the horse chestnut for planting in towns, remarking
that "next to the plane it is one of the best trees we have for this
purpose, and does not seem to suffer much from smoke." I regret that I
am unable to endorse this view. It is true that in towns of moderate
size, and in country villages, horse chestnuts may be planted with
excellent effect. I know of few more charming sights than is presented
by the group of these trees in the high street of Esher when they are in
flower; but in London horse chestnuts prove a lamentable failure. Living
as I used to do in the neighbourhood of Sloane Street, it was a distress
to me each year to watch the stunted, round-headed chestnuts in the
gardens at the lower part of that thoroughfare, and in Eaton Square,
unfolding their delicate fingers only to have them parched and blackened
by the ruthless drought and dirt of the Metropolis.
As a timber producer, the horse chestnut cannot be assigned high rank.
There is no lack of quantity, for the tree increases very rapidly in
bulk, but in quality the wood is soft, weak, and very perishable.
Moreover, it is almost useless as fuel, and probably the only economic
purpose to which it could be applied profitably is the production of
wood-pulp and celluloid.
The true meaning of the prefix "horse," by which this tree is
distinguished from the true or Spanish chestnut, has been the subject of
much discussion. Apparently it was not applied in the sense of "coarse,
large," as in the terms horse-radish, horse-mushroom, etc., for the
Turkish name for it is _at kastan_, signifying horse-chestnut; and this
was explained in a letter written by the Flemish Dr. Quackleben to
Matthiolus in 1557 (many years before the tree was known in Britain),
explaining the use of the fruit as a specific against broken wind in
horses.
[Illustration: ASPEN TREE (_Populus tremula_)]
The Poplars
"Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver green with gnarled bark;
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray."
There is much confusion among the different species of poplar, but it is
clear that in these verses Tennyson had in view our native abele or grey
poplar (_Populus canescens_), a native of Great Britain, often mistaken
for the white poplar (_P. alba_), which nearly resembles the grey, and
has been planted in this country, but is probably an exotic. The poet's
epithet "silver green" admirably describes the foliage of the grey
poplar, for some of the shoots bear green leaves, others white ones,
others again green leaves on the lower part and white on the upper.
Of all known species of poplar, thirty or so in number, the abele
produces the choicest timber, much in request by carriage-builders, who
sometimes pay as much as 2s. 6d. a cubic foot for well-grown logs. It is
excellent timber for flooring bedrooms, being less inflammable than any
other British-grown wood except larch. It is, therefore, characteristic
of British neglect of woodland resources that this tree is hardly ever
planted, though it is most easily propagated from suckers or cuttings,
and attains an immense size long before an oak could reach maturity.
The abele is more common in Scotland than in England, and many large
trees might be mentioned in the North. It would be difficult, however,
to find any to surpass two growing at Mauldslie Castle, in Clydesdale,
one of which in 1911 measured 100 feet high and 21 feet 3 inches in
girth, the other 117 feet by 16 feet 5 inches. It should be noted that
the girth of both was taken at between 2 and 3 feet from the ground,
instead of 5 feet, which is the proper height for measurement.
Next in economic importance to the grey poplar stands what is popularly
known in this country as the black Italian poplar (_P. serotina_), which
is not Italian in any sense, but a hybrid originating in France (where
it is called _peuplier suisse_) between an American species and the true
black poplar (_P. nigra_). This confusion of names is all the more
perplexing because the upright variety of the true black poplar goes by
the name of Lombardy poplar. However, one must use the names most
generally recognised among woodmen, and the black Italian poplar is well
worthy of more attention than it has hitherto received in this country,
for it produces valuable timber in greater bulk in a short term of years
than any other British-grown tree. Mr. Elwes has recorded how thirty
poplars of this variety, planted on cold clay in Gloucestershire, not
worth 5s. an acre, were sold for £3 apiece at forty-eight years of age.
He lays stress on the importance of giving this tree plenty of room at
all stages of growth, planting them at 15 to 20 feet apart, for the
timber is little worth unless the tree gets enough light to enable it to
produce wood rapidly. This precept applies to every species of poplar.
The tallest black Italian poplar in Great Britain is probably one
growing on the banks of the Tillingbourne, in Albury Park, Surrey, which
in 1912 measured 150 feet high, with a girth of 15 feet 3 inches. There
are many fine specimens in Scotland, notably one at Scone Palace, which
in 1904 was 132 feet high, with a girth of 15 feet 4 inches. Another at
Monzie, in Perthshire, measured at the same time, stood 125 feet high.
Turning now to the true black poplar (_Populus nigra_), we find that
this species, a native of Midland England, but probably not of Scotland,
has become established in the eastern United States, having been
introduced there by British colonists. It has often been confused with
the black Italian variety, but may easily be distinguished in this
country by the large burrs on the trunk, by its earlier leafing, and by
the young foliage being green, instead of reddish, as in the black
Italian. The true black poplar also sheds its leaves much earlier in
autumn than does the other. It is not a tree commonly planted in
Scotland, but there are specimens ranging from 90 to 100 feet high at
Dalzell, Ross, and Cambusnethan, in Lanarkshire; at Auchentorlie, on the
Clyde; and at Smeaton-Hepburn, in East Lothian.
The variety of this tree so well known as the Lombardy poplar forms a
notable feature in the landscapes of Southern England, Central and
Southern Europe, and a great part of Asia. As it can only be propagated
by cuttings, it is believed that all the millions of Lombardy poplars
spread over the continents of Europe and Asia originated with a single
"sport" growing on the bank of the river Po early in the eighteenth
century. Probably the first of its race was brought to England about
1750 by the third Duke of Argyll, and planted by him at Whitton, near
Hounslow. This tree, which has now disappeared, was measured by Loudon
before 1838 as 115 feet high.
[Illustration: WHITE POPLAR (_Populus alba_) IN JULY]
[Illustration: WHITE POPLAR (_Populus alba_) IN DECEMBER]
One peculiarity of the Lombardy poplar I do not remember to have seen
noticed by any writer on forestry. Other poplars of all sorts, including
the black poplar whereof this is only a variety, mingle branches freely
with their neighbours; but the Lombardy poplar is a regular
_Sainte-Nitouche_, and will not suffer contact with any other tree, even
one of its own race. A curious example of this may be seen in London.
When the Buckingham Palace Hotel was built, somewhere about 1860, Queen
Victoria desired that a screen of trees should be planted within the
Palace enclosure to shut the hotel out of view. The Office of Works
chose the Lombardy poplar, calculating that it would form a lofty, thick
hedge. Not a bit of it! The trees died rather than touch each other;
they have been replaced times without number; but the Office of Works
has never discerned the secret of their temperament, and continue their
task of Sisyphus year after year, filling the gaps caused by death with
trees of the same kind. Had a row of true planes been set there at
first, the privacy of the Palace would have been secured long before
this.
Despite this constant characteristic of the Lombardy poplar, which
anybody may verify for himself by examining the fine groups of them near
Maidenhead and Windsor, Selby committed himself to the extraordinary
statement that this tree, "planted so as to form a hedge, and being cut
even at a certain height and regularly trimmed, becomes a thick and
verdant hedge."[11]
The asp (_Populus tremula_) is now generally spoken of by the adjectival
form "aspen." Its ceaseless movement earned it the name of "quick-beam"
in Anglo-Saxon, and the Lowland Scots name, "quakin' asp" (corrupted
into "quakin' ash") has, so far, survived the operations of School
Boards. Long may it do so! The same characteristic in this tree gave it
the Gaelic name of _crithean_ (creean) or _criothach_ (creeagh), "the
trembler," which may be recognised in such place-names as Creechan in
Dumfriesshire and, perhaps, Crieff, in Perthshire. Although in bulk and
stature one of the humbler members of the poplar family, the asp
exhibits in an extreme form a peculiarity common to all the
genus--namely, that of hanging the leaves vertically, instead of holding
them horizontally. The leaves are glandular on both surfaces, which may
be either the effect of or the reason for their assuming a position
protecting both surfaces from the direct rays of the sun. To secure this
position, the petiole, or foot stalk, of each leaf, being cylindrical in
most of its length, is suddenly flattened midway between the leaf and
the twig, as if it had been pinched while soft. This causes the leaf to
hang as described, and to quiver with the slightest breath of air.
The asp is a hardy mountaineer; its graceful foliage and _eau-de-Nile_
bark saves many a Highland hillside from dreariness, but it has long
ceased to have the economic importance it once had. By an Act of the
English Parliament (4 Henry V. c. 3), a penalty of 100 shillings was
imposed upon anyone who put aspen wood to any other purpose than the
making of arrows. Mrs. Hemans has woven into verse the mediæval myth
which taught men to reckon this pretty tree accursed:
Oh! a cause more deep,
More solemn far, the rustic doth assign
To the strange restlessness of those wan leaves.
The cross, he deems, the blessed cross whereon
The meek Redeemer bowed His head to death,
Was formed of aspen wood; and since that hour
Through all its race the pale tree hath sent down
A thrilling consciousness, a secret awe,
Making them tremulous, when not a breeze
Disturbs the airy thistle-down, or shakes
The light lines of the shining gossamer.
Gerard, writing in the sixteenth century, says, with scant gallantry,
that the asp "may also be called _tremble_ after the French name,
considering it is the matter whereof women's toongs were made, which
seldom cease wagging."
[Illustration: LOMBARDY POPLAR IN SUMMER]
[Illustration: LOMBARDY POPLAR IN WINTER]
Professor Sargent enumerates eleven species of poplar as indigenous to
North America, some of which, such as the Balsam poplar (_P.
balsamifera_), the Ontario poplar (_P. candicans_), and the Carolina
poplar (_P. angulata_), have risen to large dimensions in British
woodland; but to follow out these, and their constantly recurring
hybrids, would far exceed the limits of this paper.
There are many Asiatic species also, one of which (_P. euphratica_) we
are now taught to recognise as the "arabim" whereon the captive Jews
hung their harps (Psalm cxxxvii. 2). The weeping willow, named by
Linnæus _babylonica_, is not found in the valley of the Euphrates.
It is time that British planters should recognise the importance of the
more vigorous species of poplar as rapid timber-producers, thriving in
cold, wet ground where no other crop could be raised so successfully. A
useful example is set in this matter by French cultivators, who plant
more poplars than any other tree. Moreover, all the species are most
easily propagated and handled in planting. They should be grown from
cuttings; it is futile to attempt raising them from seed--a most
uncertain process, and unsatisfactory when it succeeds, cutting-grown
plants being far more vigorous than seedlings.
The Birch
Bentham and Hooker recognised only two species of birch as indigenous to
the British Isles--namely, _Betula alba_, the common birch, and _B.
nana_, an insignificant shrub which grows in the Scottish Highlands.
Messrs. Elwes and Henry, however, in their great work give specific rank
to each of the two forms of the common birch prevailing in this country.
It is certainly strange that the difference between them has not
received more attention from foresters, seeing that one is a far more
valuable tree than the other. Whether they be permanent species or
merely racial varieties matters not for practical purposes; but it
matters much that the better kind be planted where conditions are
favourable for it.
The commoner and less desirable of the two forms has been named _B.
pubescens_, owing to the young shoots being clothed with down, sometimes
so minute as to require a lens to show it. This and the habit of the
tree are the only constant marks of distinction from the other form,
which is named _B. verrucosa_, because the shoots, though shining and
perfectly free from down, are studded with minute _verrucæ_, or warts,
easily discernible by the naked eye. I have found in southern Norway,
where the two reputed species grow together, intermediate forms which
are no doubt natural hybrids.
The two species are usually quite different in habit, the common birch
(_B. pubescens_) never carrying the long pendulous branchlets which
distinguish the silver birch (_B. verrucosa_). Moreover, the common
birch does not usually attain the stature of the other, although Mr.
Elwes mentions having measured one at Malborough 90 feet high, with a
girth of 8 feet. This is the species which grows naturally over the
greater part of Scotland, especially in the west and north. The
distinctive downiness of the young twigs may have had its origin in the
humid atmosphere and abundant rainfall of the regions where it most
abounds. Geographically it enjoys a very wide range, extending farther
north than any other tree--as far as latitude 71° near the North
Cape--and reappearing in Iceland and southern Greenland, far within the
limit of floating ice. Eastward it extends as far as Kamschatka, but it
does not reach southward beyond the Alps, not being found in the
Pyrenees or the Apennines, whereas the silver birch reaches down to
Sicily.
Coming to the north-east of Scotland, to Strathspey, Deeside, and part
of the basin of the Moray Firth, one finds a change in the aspect of the
birch forest; for here, although the common birch still prevails on the
wetter parts, the silver birch is dominant on the drained land and hill
sides. It is there that the lady of the woods displays her true grace
and it is hard to say whether she is more lovely in summer, when she
waves her long green tresses in the breeze, or in winter, when the
slanting sunbeams glint on the snowy stem, and the drooping branchlets
appear like fine tracery against the sky. This is the true weeping birch
so highly prized by landscape gardeners, and this is the species that
should always be chosen for planting, provided the land is well drained,
for it cannot stand damp feet with the same impunity as its cousin. The
general rule is not difficult to remember that, whereas the common or
downy birch will grow on almost any soil that is not actual swamp, the
silver or weeping birch is very impatient of stagnant moisture.
Beautiful as are the birch woods of Strathspey (travellers to the North
must have been charmed with those on both sides of the railway near
Lochinsch Station), it must be confessed that the silver birch does not
attain its greatest perfection in Great Britain. Individual trees may be
found to compare pretty well with those in Continental woods; but the
general average is not so good. I have not seen the birch forests of the
Baltic provinces and Central Russia; those who have done so speak
enthusiastically of them; but it is from no want of loyalty to the Birks
of Aberfeldy that I have to admit that their bark has not the sheen nor
their growth the free grace of their kindred in French, German, and
Scandinavian forests.
[Illustration: BIRCH (_Betula alba verrucosa_) IN JUNE]
[Illustration: BIRCH (_Betula alba verrucosa_) IN DECEMBER]
Inseparably associated as the birch is with Scottish landscape, poets
and painters have never wearied of honouring it. The late David
MacWhirter got its beauty rather on the brain, and one turned rather
tired of what became a mannerism in his work. Hamilton of Bangour never
rang his quaintly iterative changes so tenderly as in his ballad, _The
Braes of Yarrow_, the tragedy of a maiden with two lovers. The lovers
fight, and one falls--
The comliest swain
That e'er pu'd birks on the braes o' Yarrow.
The survivor presses his court, trying in vain to persuade the girl to
leave Tweedside and come to his home beside Yarrow.
Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the grass--
Yellow on Yarrow's braes the gowan;
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowin'.
"Flows Yarrow sweet?" she argues with him--
Flows Yarrow sweet? as sweet, as sweet flows Tweed;
As green its grass, its gowan as yellow;
As sweet smells on its braes the birk,
The apple frae its rock as mellow.
The late Professor Veitch laid finger on the only blot in this fair
picture. Apples do not hang from rocks either in Tweedside or by Yarrow,
but rowan berries do. It is a pity that Hamilton yielded so far to
eighteenth century classicism as to introduce the conventional apple.
The line would surely have run more smoothly--
"Fair hangs the rowan frae the rock."
But I have wandered away from the birch. Economically, this tree has
hitherto been reckoned of indifferent value, though there is an
inexhaustible demand for bobbins. Clogmakers, also, will make
picturesque encampment among birches of suitable size, and pay a fair
price for working up the stems.
Of the well-nigh imperishable bark no use is made in this country,
except that chemists extract from it an antiseptic called pyrobetulin,
used also in the preparation of glass for engraving. But Scandinavian
farmers sheath their wooden houses with birch bark, which makes a
durable, waterproof covering, with a beautiful silvery appearance very
gratifying to eyes offended by the evil aspect of corrugated iron. In
Russia, also, a fragrant oil is distilled from birch-wood, whence Russia
leather derives its peculiar odour. Careful housewives should note that
there is no kindling equal to birch bark, which blazes up almost as
fiercely as celluloid.
Of late years, a new use has been found for birch, deserving attention
from owners of land whereon this tree grows naturally. The small
branches and spray are found serviceable in the preparation of steel
plates, the price given at present being about 46s. a ton. The trees
should be cut before the sap rises, else the bundles will lose weight in
drying. In dealing with a birch wood for this purpose, the crop may be
considered recurrent at short rotation; for numerous suckers arise from
the roots after the tree is felled and grow very rapidly. It is to be
noted with satisfaction that the well-nigh omnivorous rabbit cannot
digest the young growths of birch; at least, it does not devour them
wholesale.
The birch is very impatient of the shade of other trees. In its turn,
although its delicate foliage might not be supposed to stop much light,
its shade is very injurious to all other deciduous trees except the
beech; a quality which causes one to wonder that such an experienced
observer as P. J. Selby should have recommended it as a nurse for
oak.[12] It is liable to be disfigured by the morbid growths popularly
known as "witch's brooms." Authorities differ as to the cause of these
fascinated bundles of twigs, some attributing them to the action of a
fungus, _Exoascus betulinus_, others to the irritation brought about by
a gall-mite (_Eriophes rudis_) attacking the buds. Probably both are
contributory agents.
The Gaelic for birch is _beith_ (pronounced "bey"), and may be
recognised in numberless Scottish place-names, such as Drumbae,
Auchenvey, Largvey, etc. The derivative _beitheach_ (pronounced
"beyoch"), signifying a birch wood, appears as Beoch in Ayrshire,
Galloway, and Dumfriesshire.
Of exotic birches suitable for cultivation in the United Kingdom, there
is a very complete collection in Kew Gardens. Among the North American
species the black or cherry birch (_Betula lenta_) probably produces the
best timber, but the most ornamental is the paper birch (_B.
papyrifera_). The Japanese (_B._ _maximowicsii_) seems to promise
better bulk than any other as a forest tree in this country.
[Illustration: WILLOW BY THE STREAM]
The Willows
"I offered him my company to a willow-tree, either to make him a
garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being
worthy to be whipped."--_Much Ado About Nothing_, Act ii. sc. i.
"Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot."
_The Lady of Shallot._
A certain botanist of distinction being consulted by an amateur about
some variety of willow exclaimed: "Pray, don't tempt me among the
willows; that way lies madness!" They are, indeed, a most complex
family, consisting of no fewer than one hundred and sixty recognised
species, besides those chance hybrids which, being not only
wind-fertilised, but dioecious (that is, the male and female
inflorescence is borne on separate trees), they are so prone to produce.
Bentham and Hooker admitted fifteen species as indigenous to the United
Kingdom, ranging from _Salix herbacea_, dwarfest of British shrubs,
humbly crouching on bleak mountain crests and seldom rearing its fairy
branchlets to a greater height than a couple of inches, to the massive
white willow (_S. alba_), which may tower to the height of nearly 100
feet.
British foresters have not hitherto turned the capabilities of the
better kinds of willow to such account as might be done, for, except in
the osier industry and for the manufacture of cricket bats, willows are
scarcely ever cultivated for profit. When they are planted at all they
are generally shoved into some piece of sour, swampy ground, fit for
nothing else; and the fact that they will actually flourish in such
places is taken as evidence that they prefer them. But the better
willows appreciate a kindly soil as much as any other tree, and it is
only on wholesome, but moist, land that they develop their proper
qualities.
By far the most valuable willow in the present condition of the timber
market is the blue willow, which some botanists distinguish as a species
under the name of _Salix coerulea_, but which is more generally deemed
to be a hybrid between the white willow (_S. alba_) and the crack willow
(_S. fragilis_). It is easily distinguished from both its reputed
ancestors; first, by its habit, which is far more erect than that of the
others, all the branches ascending without any tendency to spread or
droop; second, by its leaves, which are not nearly so downy as those of
the white willow, and of thinner texture, so that, when one is held up
against the light the tertiary venation may be seen through a lens to be
translucent; and, third, by the bark, which is quite different from the
rugged covering of the crack willow, and much smoother than that of the
white willow. The fissures or seams in the bark are straight and set
close together, enabling one to distinguish the blue willow from all
other kinds at all seasons. The general tone of the foliage is silvery
blue, instead of the silvery grey of the white willow.
The peculiar value of this willow consists in its producing the only
wood suitable for first-class cricket bats. Golf has threatened, but has
not yet undermined, the supremacy of cricket; and so long as the English
national game holds its own, so long will good samples of the blue
willow command a high price. It was in the eastern counties of England
that this tree originated, and it is thence that dealers continue
exclusively to draw their supplies, being willing to pay what might be
thought extravagant prices for the right article. Thus, Elwes records
how, in January, 1912, eleven willows were sold in Hertfordshire at
fourteen years of age for £81, or about 13s. per cubic foot. These trees
had made amazingly rapid growth, ranging from 50 to 60 feet high; but
the quality of the wood does not seem to deteriorate with age and bulk,
for in 1888 a blue willow, fifty-three years old, was sold at Boreham,
in Essex, and manufactured into 1179 cricket bats. This tree measured
101 feet high, with a girth of 16 feet 3 inches. From the same estate
another blue willow was sold in 1911 for £70. The dimensions have not
been recorded, but the purchaser estimated the price of the serviceable
wood at about £1 per cubic foot. Even more remarkable seems the
experience communicated by Mr. J. Barker of Pishiobury, Sawbridgeworth,
to the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ in 1906. He states that a parcel of land
was bought for £50 in 1889 and planted with willows, which were sold in
1905 for £2,000.
Such results as these have no parallel in British forestry; and it may
be deemed strange that more attention has not been given to the
cultivation of the blue willow. Even in Herts and Essex few of those who
grow it for the market are at pains to clear the stems of branches to a
greater height than 12 or 15 feet. There appears to be nothing
exclusively in the dry climate of East Anglia essential to the
development of good "bat" qualities; for Mr. J. A. Campbell of Ardluaine
(to whom I owe thanks for some sets of this willow) has received a most
favourable report on the wood of trees grown by him in the humid
atmosphere of Lochgilphead. In short, the blue willow is as tolerant of
conditions of soil and climate as any other native willow, and could
probably be grown at a profit in any county of the United Kingdom where
shelter from violent winds can be had; but, of course, extended sources
of supply would naturally cause a fall in the present exorbitant prices.
The approved method of propagating the blue willow is by large "sets"
from 10 to 20 feet long, cut from the branches of trees that have been
felled. These have to be sharpened at the butt and firmly set in holes
3 feet deep, formed by driving in and removing a stake. Like the poplar,
the willow imperatively demands light, and to obtain a fine quality of
timber, the growth must be rapid. Being so impatient of shade, these
trees must not be subjected to planting in close canopy, as recommended
for coniferous and other trees. The "sets," therefore, should be planted
fully 30 feet apart; and to secure a clean hole, side buds must be
rubbed off the saplings, and careful pruning applied in later years.
It must not be supposed that the supply of cricket bats exhausts the
purposes to which the wood of the blue willow may be applied. This
variety should be planted in preference to any other, because it exceeds
all others in rapidity of growth, and produces timber of fine quality
faster than any other tree that can be grown in the British Isles. But
the white willow (_S. alba_), more commonly known as the Huntingdon
willow, also yields a rapid return of light, tough wood, very durable,
and suitable for flooring, couples, cart and waggon bodies. Dr. Henry
measured two Huntingdon willows near Palnure, Kirkcudbright, in 1904,
and found them respectively 86 feet high by 10 feet 8 inches in girth,
and 82 feet by 12 feet 9 inches. But the largest willow of this species
now growing in Scotland is probably one at Coodham, near Kilmarnock,
which girthed 17 feet 1 inch in 1904.
Leaving aside the kinds of willow cultivated for osiers (a most
profitable industry), the only other native species worthy of
consideration as a timber tree is the crack willow (_S. fragilis_); so
called because of the fragility of the branchlets in spring. A
remarkably vigorous variety of the species, popularly known as the
Bedford willow, and scientifically as _S. Russelliana_, appears to have
originated about the year 1800, probably as a hybrid. A large specimen
growing in Messrs. Samson's nursery at Kilmarnock was blown down in
1911. It was 80 feet high and 16 feet in girth.
Both the crack willow and the Bedford willow may be easily distinguished
from the white or Huntingdon willow by their rugged bark, seamed with
broad and deep grooves, and by their foliage, which is green and
shining, each leaf ending in a long point bent to one side. The timber
is inferior in quality to that of the white and blue willows;
nevertheless, it is recorded in Lowe's _Agricultural Survey of Notts_
(p. 118) that a plantation of Bedford willows "yielded at eight years'
growth poles which realised a net profit of £214 per acre." It is not
unlikely, considering the confusion which prevails among species and
varieties, that these were blue, not Bedford, willows.
The lugubrious associations with which poets have invested the willow
probably may be traced to the English translation of Psalm cxxxvii. 2;
but, as noted on page 81, no willow grows on the banks of the Euphrates,
and it was a species of poplar whereon the captive Jews hung their
harps. Linnæus may be excused, in consideration of the difficulties of
travel in the eighteenth century, for having named the weeping willow
_Salix babylonica_, though that species is only to be found wild in
China; but it is an instance of the mischievous practice of one writer
copying the statements of another that in Kirkby's _Trees_ we read that
the weeping willow "grows abundantly on the banks of the Euphrates and
other parts of Asia, as in Palestine, and also in North Africa."
The name "willow" speaks to us of a time when our Anglo-Saxon forbears
dwelt in wattled houses. They spoke of the tree as _welig_ and also as
_widig_ (whence our "withy"), the root-meaning being pliancy. Another
old English name for the tree was "sallow," which in the north has been
shortened into "saugh," a term associated with one of the darkest
episodes in the somewhat murky annals of the Stuart dynasty; for it was
at Sauchieburn near Stirling that James, Duke of Rothesay, aged fifteen
years, was brought by the rebel lords to do battle with his father James
III. on 11th June, 1488. King James, flying from the field, was done to
death; and, in contrition, his son wore an iron chain round his waist
till he, too, fell as James IV. at Flodden, twenty-five years later.
The Gaelic for willow is _saileach_, whence innumerable place-names in
Scotland and Ireland, such as Barnsallie, Barsalloch, Sallachy,
Lisnasillagh, etc.
The Hornbeam
The hornbeam (_Carpinus betulus_) belongs to the birch family and the
beech belongs to the oak family, so they are far from being nearly akin;
nevertheless, the hornbeam and the beech have certain qualities
singularly similar in the two species.
First, the hornbeam imitates the foliage of the beech so closely that
when either of them is dressed as a hedge plant (a purpose for which
both are peculiarly suitable) it requires close inspection to determine
which tree it is. Second, except the elder, the beech and the
hornbeam are the only shade-bearers among our indigenous deciduous
hardwoods--that is, the only broad-leaved trees--that will flourish
under the shade and drip of other forest growths, thereby proving most
useful for under-planting. Third, as firewood there is none equal to
either beech or hornbeam, both of them excelling all other woods in the
amount of heat they discharge in combustion.
[Illustration: FRUIT OF HORNBEAM (_Carpinus betulus_)]
With these three particulars the resemblance between these two trees
ceases, for whereas the beech, under favourable conditions, soars aloft
to a stature of 130 or 140 feet, the hornbeam seldom exceeds half
that height. Moreover, while the beech is distinguished among all our
forest growths by its smoothly cylindrical trunk, the stem of the
hornbeam is always fluted and ridged, often very deeply.
Of the eighteen species of _Carpinus_ known to botanists, only one, the
common hornbeam, is indigenous in the British Isles, and there only in
the southern parts of England, Oxford and Norfolk being about its
northern limit, corresponding roughly with that of the nightingale. But
whereas the nightingale cannot be seduced into sojourn beyond its
hereditary bounds, the hornbeam flourishes freely when planted in any
part of the United Kingdom suitable for tree growth. On the Continent it
has a very wide range, extending through Central and Northern Europe
into Asia Minor, but it has not been found wild in Spain, Portugal, or
Sicily.
As a timber producer its chief value in this country has almost gone
since the substitution of coal for wood as fuel became general. In
former times the trees were grown as pollards, and regularly cut for
firewood, evidence of that industry being still to be seen in the
condition of the hornbeams in Epping Forest and other places in Kent,
Herts, and Essex. The timber, says Elwes, "is the hardest, heaviest, and
toughest of our native woods"; but it is useless for outdoor work, being
as perishable as beech when exposed to weather. It still competes with
foreign woods in the piano maker's trade, its firm texture, resembling
that of ivory or horn, rendering it excellent for fine action work. But
as the slow growth of the tree and the imports of foreign woods are
prohibitive of any prospect of profit to the British planter, the only
service to which the hornbeam can be usefully put in this country is the
production of firewood and the formation of hedges.
Nor can the hornbeam claim high rank as an ornamental tree, though fine
specimens may be seen in many English and a few Scottish parks. Elwes
mentions Cobham Park, Kent, as containing hundreds of hornbeams from 70
to 80 feet high, and quotes Sir Hugh Beevor as authority for one 100
feet high and 9 feet 8 inches in girth at High Wycombe, Bucks. I have
never seen a hornbeam of that size; the largest with which I have made
personal acquaintance being one at Gordon Castle, which Loudon described
as being 54 feet high in 1837. Sixty-seven years later it had added only
14 feet to its stature, Elwes having found it to be 68 feet high in
1904, with a girth of 8 feet.
The Alder
Of the three species of alder indigenous to Europe, namely _Alnus
incana_, _A. cordata_ and _A. glutinosa_, only the last named succeeded
in establishing itself in the British Isles after the retreat of the
ice-field; though the other two grow readily enough when planted in this
country.
"Alnus, the alder," wrote John Evelyn, "is of all other the most
faithful lover of waterie and boggie places, and those most despis'd
weeping parts or water-galls of forests." It has never been a popular
tree, either with foresters, poets, or landscape gardeners, yet it has
the merit of clothing ground which will not satisfy the wants of any
other lofty growth, thriving in swamps too sour even for the willow.
"Where do you put your brown tree?" is said to have been asked by one
artist of the Georgian era of another; and the rounded outline and
sombre foliage of a mature alder must have served many of the old school
of landscape painters in their conventional compositions.
The alder neither contributes tender verdure to the gaiety of spring nor
brilliant tints to the splendour of autumn; dull rifle green is the
livery donned in April, remaining unchanged till the frosts of late
October. Nor does this melancholy tree gladden the waterside with any
brightness of blossom; the male and female catkins, appearing before the
leaves, are dull, brownish yellow; beautiful objects under a lens, but
contributing little to cheer the wayfarer, save as being sure harbingers
of summer days. These flowers are followed by cones, which are green at
first, but, turning black when ripe, only serve to deepen the gloom.
Nevertheless, an alder copse in February and early March has a quiet
beauty all its own. The smooth twigs are glazed with a waxy secretion
and the swelling buds are plum-coloured, which the level sun-rays light
up into a charming purplish bloom. Many a time when in pursuit of spring
salmon I have enjoyed the sight of a bevy of old blackcocks busy among
the branches of the alders, whereof the buds and catkins provide them
with provender during the hungriest months of the year.
There are about five-and-twenty known species of alder, all bearing a
considerable family likeness, and none exceeding in stature our only
native species, _Alnus glutinosa_. Of this, many specimens might be
mentioned between 70 and 90 feet high, though it is often difficult or
impossible to obtain right measurement owing to the trees growing beside
rivers or lakes. The most remarkable alder wood known to me is at
Kilmacurragh, in County Wicklow. In the old spacious days the ground it
occupies was a deer park. The trees are ancient, but not very lofty,
from 50 to 60 feet high; but many of them have clean boles up to 30 or
40 feet and girth from 8 to 10 feet. One of them had a girth of 11 feet
4 inches in 1906. In the swampier parts of the wood, some of the trees
have got bowed; their trunks present a curious appearance from being
densely covered with pennyroyal (_Cotyledon umbilicus_). There can be
little doubt that this grove is a fragment of the primæval Irish forest.
There are some very fine alders beside the Gade in Cassiobury Park,
Herts, one of which Dr. Henry made out to be 85 feet high, with a girth
of 11 feet 6 inches; but these dimensions were exceeded by an alder 90
feet high with a girth of 11 feet 4 inches at Betchworth Park, Surrey,
and by one at Enville Park, Stourbridge, 87 feet high, with a girth of 8
feet 2 inches.
In Scotland the tallest measured by him was at Scone--66 feet high by 6
feet 3 inches in girth; but no doubt there are bigger alders than that
north of the Tweed, though it might not be possible to match a shapely
tree measured in 1904 at Churchill, Co. Armagh, which stood 94 feet
high, girthing 6 feet 4 inches, and having a clean bole of 60 feet.
The aforesaid tree at Scone is of the cut-leaved variety, a sport which,
originating in France, and being planted in De la Berlière's garden near
Saint-Germain, says Loudon, became the parent of all that are now to be
found. It is certainly more ornamental than the common form, the leaves
being divided half-way to the midrib into three to six segments on each
side.
The alder is not rated high among us as a timber tree, though good boles
are sometimes in request, for what precise purpose I cannot tell. Mr.
Elwes states that he sold three hundred alders standing for £100, which
he reckoned to be at the rate of 4d. or 5d. a cubic foot. This must be
considered an excellent return from land that was fit for no other crop.
Clogmakers take alder of suitable size as readily as birch, giving as
much as £40 an acre for coppice, which will be fit for cutting again in
twenty years. One of the most picturesque scenes in forestry is a summer
encampment of clog-cutters.
In Scotland probably the demand for alder for making herring barrels
would be steady and inexhaustible, were there any regularity in the
supply; but in this, as in other British forest products, so much
uncertainty is caused by the haphazard and capricious felling practised
by landowners in general, that the trade derives its supplies of staves
from abroad. For outdoor purposes, the timber is far too perishable
under vicissitudes of wet and dry; but for piles under water it is most
durable. Evelyn states, without quoting his authority, that the Rialto
at Venice is founded upon alder piles. For three hundred years charcoal
made from alder was more highly esteemed than that from any other wood
for making gunpowder; but modern explosives have caused it to be in less
request nowadays.
There may be some trout-fishers who have not learnt that an effective
way of taking the objectionable glitter from a gut cast is to draw it
two or three times through an alder leaf. Evelyn says that such leaves
afford great relief to footsore travellers if laid within the stocking.
In his _Sylva Florifera_ (1823), Henry Phillips admits us to a glimpse
into the domestic economy of our great-grandmothers, who had to contend
with certain difficulties from which modern households are happily
exempt. "The good housewife," he says, "is not unacquainted with a
property in the leaves [of alder], with which she strews her chambers
before sweeping, for, when fresh, they are covered with a glutinous
liquor that entangles fleas like birds in birdlime."
The English name "alder" has been disguised by the addition of the _d_.
It was _alr_ in Anglo-Saxon, _r_ taking the place of the Latin _n_ in
_alnus_, which is preserved in the French _aune_. In one form or another
it exists in all Teutonic dialects; we, in Scotland, retain very closely
the Anglo-Saxon sound when we speak of "eller," though we have allowed
the intrusive _d_ to slip into Elderslie, the paternal home of William
Wallace. This tree has given rise to countless place-names; in
England--Alresford on the Itchen, Allerton (eight or nine
times), Allerdale, Ellerbeck, Ellerburn, Ellerton, and so on; in
Scotland--Allershaw in Lanarkshire, Allerton in Cromarty, Allers near
Glasgow, Allerbeck in Dumfriesshire, Ellerrigs, Argyllshire; Ellerslie,
in several counties, etc. I incline to think that the frequent and
puzzling name Elrig or Eldrig may be associated with alders.
In Gaelic the alder is called _fearn_, which appears in a multitude of
place-names, such as Balfern, Glenfarne, Farnoch, Fearn, Fernie, and
Fernaig. The consonant _f_ being liable in Gaelic to be silenced by
aspiration, the descriptive name _amhuinn-fhearn_, alder river, has been
worn down into Nairn, and probably some, at least, of the numerous
streams called Earn or Erne derive their titles from a similar
contraction.
Among the exotic species of alder I only know of one worth attention for
ornamental purposes, to wit, the heart-leaved alder (_A. cordata_);
which, being found indigenous only in Corsica and Southern Italy, might
scarcely be expected to take kindly to our humid climate. It does so,
however, growing as vigorously as our native alder, and proving somewhat
more decorative. The leaves are of a shining, dark green with lighter
undersides, and the cones are at least an inch long, carried erect.
The grey alder (_A. incana_) has nothing to recommend it; except,
perhaps, to Norwegian anglers, who know how the fieldfares nest among
its thickets in garrulous colonies. It is not easy to understand how the
British Isles have missed having this species as a native, for it is
very widely distributed over Europe from the shores of the Arctic Ocean
on the north to Servia and the Apennines on the south. It is also spread
widely over the northern United States and Canada.
[Illustration: TULIP TREE
AT WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD]
[Illustration: TULIP TREE (_Liriodendron tulipifera_)
AT ALBURY PARK, SURREY
Height 96 ft., girth 11 ft. 8 in.]
The Tulip Tree
The tulip tree (_Liriodendron tulipifera_) is descended from an
extremely remote ancestry, and remains one of the stateliest denizens of
the North American river valleys, ranging from 150 to 190 feet high. The
form of its leaves is unique among those of forest trees, being lyrate,
ending in two pointed or rounded lobes considerably longer than the
midrib. Ruskin declared it to be the only leaf which did not display one
form or other of a Gothic arch--round or pointed. These leaves turn a
beautiful clear yellow in autumn, and in summer the flowers, in size and
shape like those of a tulip, attract numbers of bees. If only they were
a little more gaily painted, the tulip tree would be among the showiest
of park trees; but the petals are of a dull greenish white, with a
splash of orange at the base of the interior of each, where one can't
see it--unless one happens to be a bee.
However, its flowers apart, a well-grown tulip tree is a beautiful
object at all seasons, owing, in winter, to the tracery of its smooth,
grey branches--in summer, to its rich, bright green foliage, and in
autumn to the splendour of its decay.
It was probably brought to England in the reign of Henry VIII. or
Elizabeth by one of those botanists--Tradescant or another--who quietly
pursued their useful labours while Christians were hurrying each other
to the stake, and politicians were chopping off the heads of
inconvenient opponents.
In lofty towers let Pallas take her rest,
Whilst shady groves of all things please us best.
In the following century Evelyn said "the tulip tree grows very well
with the curious amongst us to a considerable stature. I wish we had
more of them." Given deep, generous soil and suitable shelter, this fine
tree might develop in England proportions equal to those it attains in
its native forests, where, says Elwes, it reaches "a height of 160 to
190 feet, with a straight trunk 8 to 10 feet in diameter, clear of
branches for 80 to 100 feet from the ground." But its requirements in
soil and shelter are imperative; it is a greedy feeder, and its branches
are too friable to stand violent winds. Meet conditions have been
secured at Woolbeding, already mentioned as the site of the loftiest
plane in Britain. The tulip tree there has reached a height of 105 feet,
with a girth of 17 feet. Another, of equal height, but less girth, is
reported from Strathfieldsaye, which I must have missed when I was
there, for I have no note about it.
In Scotland, the largest tulip tree I have seen is one at the Hirsel, in
Berwickshire. Loudon mentioned it in 1837 as being 100 years old and 20
feet in girth, but when I saw it last, some fifteen years ago, it was
failing in the upper storey, though it still had some vigorous foliage.
It is said to bear flowers every year; though Lord Barrymore tells me
that in his famous arboretum on Fota Island, Cork Harbour, the tulip
tree grows well, 87 feet high and 11 feet 7 inches in girth, but never
flowers. Probably, like the Oriental plane, it demands hotter summers
than we can give it in the north and west. In the southern counties of
England it blossoms abundantly, and occasionally ripens seed.
Tulip tree timber is not of the first quality. Professor Sargent
describes it as light, soft, and brittle. Nevertheless, it is much used
in America for interior work and boatbuilding, and is imported by
English merchants under the name of yellow poplar or canary-wood. Mr.
Elwes, who had a fine collection of different kinds of timber made into
furniture and panels, says it closely resembles magnolia wood, which is
not to be wondered at, seeing that the tulip tree belongs to the order
Magnoliaceæ.
Few people plant tulip trees nowadays, more's the pity; for they are far
more decorative than many of the conifers which have gone so far to
thrust deciduous trees out of fashion. It grieved me some years ago to
see a Spanish silver fir (_Abies pinsapo_), one of the least majestic of
its family, planted as the memorial of a royal visit to a fine English
demesne; it grieves me still when I reflect how little chance it has of
thriving on a shaven lawn.
The Hawthorn
"Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich-embroidered canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
O, yes, it doth--a thousandfold it doth."
(_Third Henry VI._ act ii. sc. 5.)
[Illustration: MAY BLOSSOM (_Cratægus oxyacantha_)]
The rose has long disputed with the lily her claim to rank as Queen of
Beauty, nor is the rivalry likely to be decided in favour of either so
long as human tastes differ. Howbeit, if the two claimants ever appeal
to the arbitrament of war, the rose will have the advantage of big
battalions, for her great clan far outnumbers that of the lilies and
many of them are formidably armed. There would, indeed, be some mighty
blanks in our fields and gardens if the great natural order of Rosaceæ
were banned; for not only should we lose the enormous and
ever-increasing variety of the rose itself and its hybrids, but the
spiræas, the cinquefoils, the cotoneasters, the so-called laurels (which
are not laurels at all, but evergreen plums), wherewith we deck our
pleasure-grounds, would disappear also, and with them the plums,
cherries, peaches, apples, pears, strawberries, and raspberries would be
among the exiles, for all these and many more are families in this vast
order.
[Illustration: FRUIT OF HAWTHORN (_Cratægus oxyacantha_)]
Yet would not the disappearance of any of them work such a change in
British landscape, as it would suffer if we were to lose the hawthorn,
which is also a member of the rose order. It is the most beautiful
native flowering tree we possess, for the laburnum, the horse chestnut,
and the catalpa must be written off as exotics, though, happily, they
have proved most successful colonists.
Not long ago I was driving out from New York to visit Mr. Roosevelt in
Long Island. My companion and cicerone was one who gained more than the
common measure of esteem while he was American Ambassador in London.
When I expressed to him warmly my admiration for the masses of _Cornus
florida_ which formed the undergrowth of the woods bordering our route,
and which (it was in May) were displaying their snowy blossoms in
endless drifts and wreaths: "Very beautiful," he said; "but I would
rather have your British hawthorn blossom with its fragrance."
This was high testimony from one in whose country Professor Sargent has
enumerated no fewer than one hundred and forty-three distinct American
species of _Cratægus_ or hawthorn, many of which produce beautiful
flowers; but none of those which I have seen are equal to the single
species indigenous to the British Isles--_Cratægus oxyacantha_. In
saying a single species, I am aware that later botanists have
distinguished as a species a form found on the Continent and in the
midland and south-eastern English counties; but Bentham and Hooker
admitted this only as a variety.
In Scotland we always speak of hawthorn blossom, but in England you
shall never hear that term, for there they call it May blossom, yet you
may seldom find it in bloom till near the end of that month. In Brand's
_Antiquities_ (1777) it is stated that "it was an old custom in Suffolk
in most of the farmhouses that any servant who could bring in a branch
of hawthorn in full blossom on the 1st of May was entitled to a dish of
cream for breakfast. This custom is now disused, not so much from the
reluctance of the masters to give the reward, as from the inability of
the servants to find the white thorn in flower." The reason for this is
to be sought in a change, not in the flowering season, but in the
calendar; the old style during the eighteenth century being twelve days
in arrear of the new style, so that May Day was equivalent to what is
now 12th May. It will be remembered that, while the new style was
enacted in Scotland by James VI.'s Privy Council in 1600, it was not
until 1751 that an Act of Parliament caused it to be adopted in England,
which did the Suffolk peasants out of all chance of cream for breakfast.
One of the many admirable virtues of the hawthorn is its indifference to
soil and situation. Give it light and free air, and it will flower as
freely on the shingle of a wind-swept beach, where it crouches along
the stones to escape the blast, as it does in a fat English pasture, a
villa garden, or a Highland glen. The most remarkable grove of ancient
hawthorns known to me is to be seen in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. It is
a sight never to be forgotten when these trees, many of them (speaking
from recollection) 40 feet high, are laden in June with their snowy
wreaths. There are many hawthorns of greater height in other districts,
notably one at Lenchford, in Worcestershire, whereof the dimensions in
1875 were recorded in the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ as 60 feet high and 9
feet in girth.
The hawthorn is a long-lived tree. It was not until after the middle of
the nineteenth century that Maxwell's Thorn disappeared from the banks
of the Dryfe in a flood. It was under this tree that, according to local
tradition, John Lord Maxwell, the Warden, lay wounded after the fatal
encounter with the Johnstones on Dryfe Sands, 6th December, 1593. Eight
hundred of his men are said to have perished, and the old lord, "a tall
man," says Spottiswoode (vol. ii. 446), "and heavy in armour, was in the
chase overtaken and stricken from his horse." William Johnston of
Kirkhill was his assailant; who, according to some accounts, contented
himself with hewing off the Warden's hand, in order to claim the reward
offered by his chief to any man who should bring it to him. As Maxwell
lay bleeding under the thorn tree, a lady came on the scene--some say it
was the lady of Lochwood herself, the Chief's wife, others that it was
the wife of James Johnston of Kirkton. Whichever it was, she belonged to
the militant party of her sex, if it be true, as alleged, that she
knocked out the Warden's brains with the tower keys that hung at her
girdle. In justice to the dame it should be mentioned that a few nights
previously Lord Maxwell had burnt down Lochwood Tower, declaring that
"he would give the Lady Johnston light to set her hood!" Moreover, he
had offered the gift of a farm to anyone who should bring him the head
of the laird of Lochwood, who, being in arms against the Warden, was
technically the King's rebel. Maxwell's Thorn, as aforesaid, ceased to
exist sixty years ago, but a young tree was planted in its place, which
doubtless will be venerated by generations unborn as the original.
The kindly nature of the hawthorn and the simple nature of its cultural
requirements have caused everybody to be familiar with the beautiful red
and pink, single and double, varieties which have been raised and widely
distributed. There is a variety with scarlet berries which I have only
seen in the park at Newton Don, near Kelso. Beautiful as are the common
red haws upon which fieldfares, redwings, and other winter visitors
mainly depend for provender, this scarlet fruited variety is a much more
brilliant object at the dullest time of the year. The variety with
yellow haws is no improvement on the type.
Phillips in his _Sylva Florifera_ (1823) states that "a variety has been
discovered in a hedge near Bampton, Oxfordshire, which produces white
berries." This variety, if it ever existed, appears to have been lost.
He also commits himself to the statement that "the fruit of this tree
are called haws, from whence the name hawthorn"; which proves that a man
may be an excellent botanist and a bad etymologist. In Middle English
"hawe" meant a hedge, and also ground enclosed by a hedge. It was in the
latter sense that Chaucer wrote in the _Canterbury Tales_:
And eke there was a polkat [polecat] in his hawe.
The tree got the name of hawthorn, _i.e._ hedgethorn, because it has no
rival as a hedge plant.
And this brings us to consider what is the economic value of the
hawthorn. It has become indispensable for hedges, which are as
inseparable from a foreigner's impressions of English landscape as
poplars are from French country scenery, and as date palms are from that
of Egypt.
Green fields of England! wheresoe'er
Across the watery waste we fare,
Your image in our hearts we bear,
Green fields of England, everywhere.
But the fields would not be so green, they would not indeed stamp
themselves on the memory as fields at all, were it not for the hedges
that mark them off. In Scotland hedges are not so universal, the
preference being given to stone dykes, where the necessary material lies
to hand, or, alas, to barbed wire, which, effective though it be as a
fence, prevails to vulgarise the fairest scenery. Dr. Walker states in
his _Essays of Natural History_ (1812) that Cromwell's soldiers first
planted, or taught the Scots to plant hedges in East Lothian and
Perthshire. They learnt the planting all right, but not, it would
appear, the subsequent management; for, except in the Lothians, it is
the exception to see hedges rightly tended. The plants are allowed to
straggle and to be browsed bare below by cattle, when the gaps are
repaired by running a wire through them. Far more admirable is the craft
of the English hedger, who knows how to make a beautiful and durable
fence by plashing and binding.
The timber of hawthorn possesses more merit than is usually assigned to
it; in fact, there cannot be said that there is any market for it,
owing, probably, to the rough state in which it is almost invariably
grown. But it is hard and heavy, with a fine grain, taking a good
polish. Some of the wood-cuts in back numbers of the _Gardeners'
Chronicle_ were engraved on hawthorn; but Mr. Elwes, who has
experimented practically with every British wood, considers that boxwood
is of superior texture.
In the good times of old, when men strove more earnestly to cut each
other's throats than, as at the present day, to catch each other's
votes, every Highland clan has a distinctive badge consisting of a sprig
of some common plant whereby friend might be known from foe. The small
sept of Ogilvie chose the hawthorn.
No tree or plant has lent its name more freely to denominate places. The
Norsemen are responsible for _Thorn-ey_ on the left bank of the tidal
Thames, to which the Saxons, forgetting that _ey_ is good Norse for
"island," extended the name pleonastically to Thorney Island, and then
came Edward the Confessor to obliterate both names by building on the
island the abbey and church--the West Minster.
Countless are the places called Thornton, Thornhill, Thornbury, etc., in
England, all named from the hawthorn--the thorn of thorns; while in
Scotland, besides romantic Hawthornden, and in Ireland, the Gaelic word
_sceach_ or _scitheog_ (_th_ silent) occurs in almost every parish in
some form or other--Skeog, Skeagh, Skate, Drumskeog, Tullynaskeagh, etc.
A foreign relative of the hawthorn may be mentioned here as being more
worthy of consideration as a timber tree, and, besides, being
exceedingly ornamental, namely, _Cotoneaster frigida_. Most people are
familiar with the genus _Cotoneaster_ in the form of shrubs of modest
stature, producing quantities of red berries; and in gardener's
dictionaries, etc., one reads that this Himalayan species grows about 10
feet high. If it did no more than that, it would be well worth planting
for the sake of its woolly cymes of white flowers in July and the
extraordinary profusion of scarlet berries which follows them; yet, even
so, it could not claim notice among forest trees. In fact, it promises
to outstrip the hawthorn in height. Some of mine have reached a height
of 40 feet already, at an age of fifty years, and if care is bestowed
on timely pruning in youth, the wood is straight, clean and very hard.
It has not yet been put to any economic use, so far as known to me, but
I have a notion it will prove fine material for the heads of golf
clubs.
The Rowan and its Relatives
There is no group of trees whereof the scientific nomenclature has
become so hopelessly confused as the _Pomaceæ_, a sub-order of the vast
rose order. The group itself divides itself naturally into seven
sub-groups or sections, which some botanists treat as independent
species; but British foresters need to concern themselves with only five
of these sections--namely (1) _Sorbus_, the rowan; (2) _Aria_, the
whitebeam; (3) _Hahnia_, the wild service tree; (4) _Pyrophorum_, the
pears; and (5) _Malus_, the apples.
Some people may feel impatient with these niceties of classification,
and declare that popular names serve all useful purpose; but many of
these trees are very beautiful, well deserving the attention of
planters, who are sure to be disappointed in being served with the wrong
species unless they are at the pains to know exactly what they order
from nurserymen, and are able to identify the plants when they get them.
The rowan tree (_Pyrus aucuparia_) is of humble stature, seldom
exceeding 40 feet; nevertheless, we should be losers if it disappeared
from our woodlands, not only because of its beauty and the delicious
diet which it affords to birds, but because of the peculiar veneration
with which, in primitive times, it became invested in Northern Europe.
The Norsemen held it to be a holy tree, consecrated to Thor, and their
faith in its protective virtues became deeply implanted in the folk-lore
of our own country.
Rowan-tree and red thread
Gar the witches come ill-speed.
It has been suggested that the singular expression, "Aroint, thee,
witch!" occurring nowhere in English literature except in _Macbeth_, Act
1, sc. 3, is a corruption of "A rountree, witch!" but the late Professor
Skeat sternly refused to entertain that explanation. Anyhow, so long as
belief in witchcraft endured in this country, a branch of rowan was
esteemed a sure protection against evil spells. In many a Scottish byre
a bunch of rowan may still be seen suspended, and a common feature in
cottage garden plots consists of a couple of rowan saplings planted
before the door, with their tops plaited together to form an arch, so
that comers and goers shall thereby derive protection against witchcraft
by passing under the tutelary boughs.
[Illustration: FLOWERS OF THE ROWAN (_Pyrus aucuparia_)]
In Strathspey it used to be the custom to cause all sheep and lambs to
pass through a hoop of rowan wood on the 1st of May, and flocks and
herds were driven to the summer shieling with a rod of the same wood. In
some parts of England the rowan is still called the "witchen." Evelyn
wrote of it under that name, and said that in his day (1620-1706) the
tree was reputed so sacred in Wales "as that there is not a churchyard
without one of them planted in it; so on a certain day in the year
everybody religiously wears a cross made of the wood."
By the by, let no lover of woodland ever speak of a mountain ash when he
means a rowan. That is a silly name, for the rowan has no affinity with
the ash, and although it may be found growing in the Highlands at a
height of more than 2,000 feet, yet it is just as much at home anywhere
between that altitude and the seaboard. We need not be ashamed of having
borrowed the name "rowan" from the Norsemen, for there is a strong
Scandinavian strain in our island blood. The Swedes spell it _ronn_, the
Norwegians _rogn_, and the Icelanders _reynir_.
The chief claim which the rowan has upon our affection is its autumnal
beauty. If the birds would only suffer its scarlet berries to hang a
little longer than is their wont, no British tree could match it in
brilliancy of fall. It is widely distributed over northern and central
Europe, and is established in Iceland, whither it was perhaps carried
long ago by pious Norsemen, for it does not occur in America. Little use
is now made of its timber, which is very hard, heavy, and tough; so much
so that in old days it was reckoned as only second to the yew for
bow-making. It is mentioned in the Act 8 Elizabeth c. x. as
"witch-hazel," among the woods whereof every bowyer dwelling in London
was to keep fifty bows ready in stock.
Among the place-names into which the Gaelic name for the
rowan--_caorunn_--enters may be mentioned Attachoirinn in Islay,
Barwhirran in Wigtownshire, and Leachd a' chaorruin in Corrour Forest.
The rowan cannot be confounded with any other species of this family,
nor with any of the numerous hybrids which have arisen therein, for it
is easily distinguished by its pinnate leaves, consisting of eleven to
fifteen leaflets set herring-bone fashion on a midrib about 6 inches
long. Except the true service (_Pyrus sorbus_) all the other species
carry entire leaves, lobed in some species, but never pinnate. The true
service tree, though believed not to be indigenous to Great Britain,
grows readily there, though it is not planted so often as it deserves to
be, both on account of its beautiful and useful timber and of the
excellent fruit which it bears profusely, qualities which cause it to be
very extensively cultivated in France. It is also a highly ornamental
tree, as those may testify who have visited Vevay in autumn and admired
the brightness of fruit and foliage in the avenues of service trees
planted there. I do not know of any specimens in Scotland, but there are
several fine service trees from 45 to 65 feet high in English parks;
none, however, remaining equal in stature to one at Melbury Court,
Dorsetshire, which has now departed, but was recorded by Loudon as being
82 feet high in 1830, with a girth of 9 feet 9 inches. The fruit varies
much in quality; the better flavoured kinds being highly esteemed by the
French peasantry. Evelyn says, "It is not unpleasant; of which, with
new wine and honey, they make a _conditum_ of admirable effect to
corroborate the stomach." Those who wish to plant this tree had best go
to a French nurseryman and order it under the name of _Cormier_ or
_Sorbus domestica_.
The wild service (_P. torminalis_) will attain a height of 70 or 80 feet
if it is given a fair chance, which it seldom gets from us. Its chief
recommendation is its handsome foliage, the leaves being deeply lobed.
They turn a fine orange colour in autumn, but the fruit adds nothing to
the display, being brown when ripe. For ornamental purposes the
whitebeam (_P. aria_) is far preferable to the wild service, owing to
the snowy whiteness of the young shoots and undersides of the leaves.
The fruit, moreover, is bright red; but this is of the less moment,
inasmuch as birds devour it so soon as it is ripe. By far the noblest of
all the _Sorbus_ group is the Himalayan _Pyrus vestita_ (also known as
_Sorbus nepalensis_). Its broadly oval, pointed leaves are very large,
thickly clothed with white wool when young, remaining white on the
undersides until late autumn, when they turn to a clear yellow. The
clusters of white flowers are very woolly, and are followed by large
round red fruits. It is an exceedingly handsome and stately tree, and
ought to be better known in this country than it is at present; but much
disappointment has been incurred through the vicious practice followed
by nurserymen of grafting it high upon the rowan, a tree of much
inferior bulk. The result is that the scion, flourishing vigorously for
a few seasons, outgrows the stock, which cannot carry up enough sap to
supply the wants of the more robust species. It is pathetic to see the
leaves endeavouring to unfold, but failing to do so. There is then
nothing for it but to root the whole affair up, and procure seedlings,
or, at least, plants grafted _low_ on the British stock, which, if
deeply planted, enable the scions to throw out roots of their own.
Leaving _Sorbus_--the rowans--let us glance at _Malus_--the apples; and
among the fourteen species, all more or less distinguished by the
loveliness of their blossom, confine our attention to the wild crab,
parent of all our cultivated varieties. Of all the floral displays of
British springtide, there is none more exquisite than an old crab in
full flower, standing in a sea of blue hyacinths. It says little for our
intelligence that, while we are ready to spend lavishly in the purchase
of foreign trees and shrubs, many of very doubtful merit, none of us
seem to think the crab-tree worth anything except as a stock for
grafting orchard apples on.
Nevertheless, the crab has valuable qualities besides its beauty. "Fetch
me a dozen crab-tree staves," shouts the porter of King Henry's palace,
"and strong ones. I'll scratch your heads!" (_K. Henry VIII._, Act v.
sc. 3). Those golfers who have passed their meridian surely remember
that crab was reckoned the only material for club-heads in the old days
of hard "gutties." But there was no great store of crab-trees in the
land; so when golfers began to become like the sand of the sea for
multitude the supply ran out, and club-masters carved the heads out of
beech. A tougher substitute has now been found in the American persimmon
(_Diospyros_), but methinks our native crab would hold its own with any
other wood if it were still to be had.
Probably the largest crab-tree in Scotland (if it still stands) is one
at Kelloe, in Berwickshire, which Sir R. Christison measured in 1876,
and found to be 50 feet high and 8 feet in girth.
The wild pear (_Pyrus communis_) is much more rare in Britain than the
crab-tree, being found only in the southern English counties, and even
there it is difficult to decide whether any pear tree is really wild or
only a relic of cultivation. The timber of the pear, whether wild or
cultivated, is very beautiful, and is one of the choicest for carved
work; whereof a fine example may be seen among the panels in Windsor
Castle.
The Gean Tree, or Wild Cherry
In discoursing about the hawthorn, I assigned to it the first place for
beauty of blossom among our native trees, but in holding that supremacy
it has a dangerous rival in the gean, or wild cherry, which, to quote
John Evelyn's eulogy, "will thrive into stately trees, beautified with
blossoms of a surprising whiteness, greatly relieving the sedulous bees
and attracting birds." In truth, the verdict upon the rivalry of the
hawthorn and the gean must be "honours easy," for if the fragrance of
the first turns the scale in its favour in spring, the gean scores
heavily in autumn through the gorgeous hues of its fading foliage, no
other British tree, if it be not the rowan, equalling it in sunset
splendour. Nor is the flower of the gean without a fragrance--more
delicate and less powerful than that of the hawthorn. Elwes tells how
the late Mr. Foljambe, of Osberton, when old and quite blind, used to
cause his son to lead him out among the cherry trees when they were in
blossom, that he might enjoy their scent.
Doubts have been expressed whether the gean tree can be claimed as truly
indigenous, many writers (my friend Canon Ellacombe among others)
accepting Pliny's statement (lib. xv. cap. 25) that the cherry was
unknown in Italy till Lucullus introduced it from Asia Minor after his
victory over Mithridates (B.C. 84), and that it was taken by the Romans
into Britain. In support of this view may be cited the absence of any
name for the cherry in old Gaelic, the modern word, _sirist_, being
merely an adaptation of the Latin _cerasus_, just as _an Siosalach_--the
Chisholm--is a rendering of the Norman name Cecil. The Scottish name
"gean" does not help us, being borrowed from the French _guigne_.
Nevertheless, Dr. Henry follows Bentham and Hooker in regarding the wild
cherry as undoubtedly indigenous in parts of Great Britain.
Lucullus, indeed--proverbial for his love of good things--may well have
brought to Italy some of the cultivated varieties of the cherry; but the
wild tree seems to have established itself as far north as Bergen in
Norway, in which province there exists a large wood purely of cherry
trees; and Wilkomm reported in 1887 having found semi-fossil remains of
the gean in Swedish peat mosses; wherefore let us give ourselves the
benefit of the doubt and claim this pretty tree as a native of British
soil. Anyhow, it is thoroughly at home in these islands, reproducing
itself readily both by seed and suckers, wherever it gets a chance; and
no tree should be made more welcome in our woodlands, both on account of
its beauty and utility.
Hitherto British foresters have treated the wild cherry with unmerited
neglect. Nobody thinks of planting geans, except here and there for
ornament; nor is there any regular market for the timber. Yet that is of
high quality and very ornamental for indoor work, having a fine silky
grain and a charming pinkish colour. Mr. Elwes, who has used it for
panelling, says that when soaked in lime water it assumes a richer tint,
resembling unstained mahogany. It has the merit of seasoning readily,
and never warping.
The pews in Gibside Church, Northumberland, were made of cherry wood in
1812, and are reported by Mr. A. C. Forbes to be perfectly sound and
well-fitting still. Wild cherry trees are seldom felled till they show
signs of decay, and as they are not long-lived--a century being about
the outside span of their vigorous life--the quality of the timber
should not be estimated from trees more than sixty or seventy years old.
The growth is rapid, and the tree may be drawn up in shelter to a great
height; there is a specimen in Windsor Park, near the Bishopsgate, which
was 93 feet high in 1904, with a girth of 9 feet 3 inches.
In the _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, Messrs. Elwes and Henry
have a plate representing an extraordinary cherry tree growing in
Savernake Forest, with a wild spread of branches and a bole, covered
with enormous burrs, measuring 12 feet 7 inches in girth at 4 feet from
the ground. A Scottish counterpart to the Savernake tree may be seen at
Gribton, near Dumfries, which, though only 56 feet high, has a girth of
12 feet 8 inches, with a branch spread of 70 feet. A massive gean tree
at Mauldslie Castle, Lanarkshire, was 52 feet high in 1899, with a girth
of 13 feet 2 inches. It is fast decaying, nor is the iron band with
which its fork has been braced likely to prolong its existence beyond
the natural term.
The wild cherry is the parent of all the cultivated varieties, many of
which are derived from a high antiquity. Pliny enumerates eight
varieties, including those with black and red fruits, and one which he
describes as appearing half-ripe, which seems to indicate what we know
as the bigarreau cherry. No doubt these varieties were of Asiatic
origin, the Chinese and Persians having long preceded European nations
in the craft of horticulture. The Rev. R. Walsh, writing in the
_Transactions of the Horticultural Society_, 1826, described "an
amber-coloured transparent cherry of a delicious flavour. It grows in
the woods in the interior of Asia Minor, particularly on the banks of
the Sakari--the ancient Sangarius. The trees attain gigantic size; they
are ascended by perpendicular ladders suspended from the lowest
branches. I measured the trunk of one; the circumference was 5 feet, and
the height where the first branches issued 40 feet; from the summit of
the highest branches was from 90 feet to 100 feet, and this immense tree
was loaded with fruit."
Compare with this the produce of a single cherry tree during the year
1913 at Faourg, near Avenche, in the Swiss canton of Vaud. It took three
men fifteen days to gather the fruit, which weighed in the aggregate
two tons. The fruit is of a small and red variety, used for making
kirsch; and it was reckoned that the crop of this tree would produce 200
litres of the spirit, which, at 5 francs a litre, amounts to £40.
The scientific name for the gean is _Prunus avium_--the birds' plum; but
what we mean when we speak of "bird cherry" is a very different, though
nearly kindred, species--_Prunus padus_, a pretty native tree of small
stature which is spread all over northern Europe and Asia. It is very
beautiful when covered with its white flowers in long racemes--pity they
last such a short time--but the little black fruits are of no use to any
creature bigger than a pheasant. Anglers in Norwegian rivers are
familiar with the white plumes of bird cherry, waving like fine
lace-work from the grim cliffs overhanging many a green _dal_.
Lovely as the gean tree is when in full blossom, some of the
double-flowering Japanese cherries are even more so, and they have this
advantage, that the display is not nearly so fleeting. What may be the
wild parent of these cultivated forms I am unable to say; but Mr. J. H.
Veitch, writing from Yokohama, indicates that some, at least, are not
cherries at all:
"The cherries in this neighbourhood are magnificent. Tinted
photographs give a very complete idea of their beauty; one looks up
and walks under a ceiling of the softest pink. At Mukojima a row of
these cherries a mile long by the river bank, in some places faced
by a row on the opposite side of the road, is a sight it will be
difficult to forget. Cherries are, in fact, to be seen everywhere
in and around Tokio, and it would be difficult to imagine anything
more beautiful for the few days they are in flower. The species
is known scientifically as _Prunus Mume_; it is really an
apricot."[13]
[Illustration: GEAN (_Prunus avium_)
IN BLOOM]
By far the finest display of these cherries that I have seen is in the
Arnold Arboretum, attached to Harvard University, Boston, U.S. There
Professor Sargent and Mr. E. H. Wilson have got together what are
probably the finest groups of these lovely trees outside Japan. The
profusion of blossom, snowy white or rich pink, must be seen to be
believed. Why is not more use made of them in the gardens of great
country houses in our own country? They are perfectly hardy, but, as
nurserymen usually supply them grafted on crab stocks, incessant
vigilance is required during the young stages to prevent the stock
reasserting itself and overcoming the scion.
Probably the reason why these exquisite forms of cherry and plum are not
more often seen is to be found in the perverse habit which impels most
people who have fine private pleasure grounds to spend the sweet o' the
year in London. Having been asked by the wife of a great landowner to
take counsel with their Scottish gardener about improving the pleasure
grounds round their magnificent castle, and perceiving that the climate
was peculiarly mild, the site facing the sea, yet sheltered, I suggested
that he should plant some of the fine Himalayan rhododendrons, as it was
just the place for them. His reply was resentful in tone. "The wur-r-rst
of rhododendrons is that they will not flower when the family's at
home." So tactless of the rhododendrons!
The Walnut
The very name we have given it forbids us to claim the walnut as a
native of the British Isles, for in Anglo-Saxon speech it was _wealh
knut_, the foreign nut, just as they called the Celts of the West
_wealas_, the foreigners, a name which has persisted to our times, as
Wales. So, also, mediæval German writers termed France _das Welsche
Land_, and, referring to the whole world, they described it as _in allen
Welschen und in Deutschen Reichen_, "in all Welsh and German realms." It
is not easy to fix the limits within which the walnut may be accounted
indigenous, so widely has it been cultivated for its fruit; but it is
certainly found as a wild tree over a great part of south-eastern
Europe, through Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Persia, the Himalayas to
Burmah, China, and possibly Japan.
More has been laid upon Roman shoulders in connection with their
occupation of Britain than perhaps they should justly bear, but we may
safely credit our conquerors with having introduced the walnut, which
they held in very high esteem as providing a favourite article of food,
and the nuts were easily carried and planted. The name they gave
it--_Juglans_, i.e. _Jovis glans_, "Jove's nut"--betokens the value at
which they rated this tree. Pliny devotes a long chapter to the walnut,
expressing doubt whether it was known in Italy during Cato's life (B.C.
234-149). He says that it was brought into Greece from Pontus (Asia
Minor), thence to Italy, wherefore the fruit was called Pontic or Greek
nuts. He also describes how these nuts were thrown at weddings,
certainly a more formidable kind of missile than rice and confetti, as
we now do use.
The walnut has adapted itself to the soil and climate of the British
Isles in exactly the same measure as the Spanish chestnut--that is, it
will thrive in all parts of the United Kingdom and grow to very large
dimensions under reasonable conditions of shelter; but it will not
produce fruit worth gathering in ordinary seasons north of the English
Midlands. Its merit as a timber tree entitles it to far more attention
from foresters than it now receives, for, indeed, it is one of the most
valuable hardwoods that can be planted. The fruit was too precious to
the Romans to allow the tree to be used for that purpose, but, wrote
Juvenal, _Annosam si forte nucem dejecerat Eurus--_"if the east wind
happened to uproot an aged walnut"--the timber was highly prized for
furniture.
Howbeit, there are walnuts and walnuts. The tree, having been cultivated
for its fruit from immemorial time, has developed a great number of
varieties, producing large or thin-shelled nuts, which cannot be
trusted for the production of fine timber. Where that is the purpose, it
is important to plant the wild type, for which the demand is not such as
to encourage nurserymen to stock it. John Evelyn, nearly two hundred and
fifty years ago, urged his fellow-countrymen to give more attention to
the walnut, but he urged in vain.
"How would such publick plantations improve the glory and wealth of
a nation! but where shall we find the spirits among our countrymen?
Yes, I will adventure to instance in those plantations of Sir
Richard Bidolph upon the downs near Letherhead in Surry; Sir Robert
Clayton at Morden near Godstone, and so about Cassaulton
[Casehorton], where many thousands of these trees do celebrate the
industry of the owners, and will certainly reward it with infinite
improvement, as I am assured they do in part already, and that very
considerably; besides the ornament which they afford to those
pleasant tracts."
It is curious to find Evelyn, who infused a fair proportion of
scientific scepticism into his practical treatise, lending credence to
some of the mythical virtues of the walnut. Thus he gravely writes that
"the distillation of the leaves with honey and urine makes hair spring
on bald heads."
In raising this tree from seed the walnuts offered for sale as food
should be avoided, for these generally have been kiln-dried, and their
vitality, as well as their flavour, thereby impaired or destroyed. Nuts
should be selected from large trees of the best habit, laid in sand
during the winter and sown in February. They are rather ticklish plants
to handle in the nursery, owing to the long bare tap-root which they
send down, and which should be shortened when the seedlings are
transplanted, as they should be at a year old. If fine timber be the
object, the young trees when planted out should be stimulated to upward
growth by the presence of other trees as nurses. A very slight spring
frost suffices to destroy the young growth; but the walnut generally
escapes that risk by being the latest of all our woodland trees, except
the ash, to put forth leaves. I do not remember to have seen the young
leaves appear so early as they did in the remarkable spring of 1914,
when they were put forth before the end of April; the ash continuing
bare that year till the very end of May.
Of the many fine walnut trees scattered over the midland and southern
English counties, I have seen none equal in size to one figured in Elwes
and Henry's great work (vol. ii., plate 74), a truly noble specimen
growing at Barrington Park, Oxfordshire. In 1903 it was between 80 and
85 feet high, with a girth of 17 feet. The bole and branches are covered
with burrs, indicating that the timber would make beautiful panelling
and veneers.
The only notable walnuts which I can remember to have seen in Scotland
are one at Gordon Castle, another at Cawdor, and a third at
Blairdrummond. The first of these would have been a magnificent tree had
it been subjected to forest discipline in youth, and so expended its
vigour in height rather than breadth. It is only 60 feet high, with a
girth of 10 feet, but it covers with its huge branches a space nearly 80
feet in diameter. The tree at Cawdor is about 65 feet high, with a girth
of 15 feet 7 inches; and that at Blairdrummond is the tallest of the
three, with a girth of 13 feet. Such dimensions cannot compare with
those which the walnut attains in Southern Europe. A writer in the
_Gardeners' Chronicle_ described one in the Baidar Valley, near
Balaclava, which yields from 80,000 to 100,000 nuts annually, and
belongs to five Tartar families, who divide the produce between them.
Still, there are so many fine examples of what this tree may become in
Great Britain that one may well ask why the production of its timber has
been so utterly neglected. Mahogany and other foreign woods have usurped
its place in the cabinet trade; but we still import large supplies of
walnut, not only for panelling, but for the stocks of army and sporting
small arms. For that purpose it has no equal, owing to its lightness,
strength, the nicety with which it can be cut to fit gunlocks, and
because it never warps nor swells when exposed to wet. "During the last
war," says Selby in 1842, "when most of the continental ports were shut
against us, walnut timber rose to an enormous price, as we may collect
from the fact of a single tree having been sold for £600; and as such
prices offered temptation that few proprietors were able to resist, a
great number of the finest walnuts growing in England were sacrificed at
that period to supply the trade.[14] Some years ago the War Office
authorities sought to extend their sources of supply by substituting one
of the superb kinds of timber grown in our colonies; but although
twenty different woods were submitted and tested, none was found
suitable except the American black walnut.
This (_Juglans nigra_) is a larger tree than the European species,
growing to a height of 150 feet with a girth of 15 to 20 feet in the
middle States of North America. It has now become very scarce, owing to
reckless destruction of the forests; but there are some specimens in
England already approaching the dimensions of those in Ohio, Indiana,
and Kentucky. For instance, there is one at the Mote, near Maidstone,
over 100 feet high, with a girth of 12 feet 6 inches in 1905, and
another in the public park at Twickenham, 98 feet high in the same year,
with a girth of 14 feet 3 inches. Besides some lofty black walnuts of
the ordinary type at Albury Park, Surrey, there is one very handsome
tree on the terrace, near the house, distinguished as a variety under
the title _J. nigra alburyensis_.
I do not know of any in Scotland, except a few hundreds which I raised
from seed about ten years ago, and which are now planted out in mixture
with the Japanese _Cercidiphyllum_. The only fault I find with them is
that, while the young growth is as tender as that of the common walnut,
it is earlier in starting, and therefore more liable to injury from
spring frosts.
The timber of the black walnut is quite equal in quality and superior in
beauty to that of the European species. The tree is sometimes confused
with the kindred genus hickory (_Carya_), whereof there are many fine
specimens in Great Britain; but the two genera may be readily
distinguished from each other by cutting across a twig. The pith of all
species of walnut is neatly chambered, that of the hickories is solid.
[Illustration: BLACK WALNUT (_Juglans nigra_ var. _alburyensis_)
AT ALBURY PARK, SURREY
Height 75 ft., girth 9 ft. 6 in.]
The Holly
"Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly."
It is rather curious that, dearly as Shakespeare loved the woodland and
ready as he ever was to enrich his verse with references to trees and
flowers, he never mentions the holly except in this song from _As You
Like It_. This is the more remarkable because holly is more widely
distributed over Britain than most other forest growths, and must have
been far more abundant in the sixteenth century before the land was
infested by rabbits to the extent it is now; for these accursed rodents
make a clean sweep of holly seedlings and also destroy large trees by
barking them.
It may be thought that the holly should be ranked as a shrub rather than
as a forest tree; but when well grown it is fairly entitled to the
superior rank, for there are many fine specimens in these islands
upwards of 50 feet high. Dr. Henry measured one in 1909 near Ampthill,
in Bedfordshire, 60 feet high and ll½ feet in girth. But this tree
has no single bole, for it divides into seven large stems at about 18
inches from the ground. A far more shapely specimen is one which Lord
Kesteven measured at Doddington Hall, Lincoln, and found in 1907 to be
about 50 feet high, with a girth of 9½ feet at breast height. Being
very patient of shade, the holly is sometimes drawn up to still greater
height than this; Mr. Elwes having found some at Russells, near Watford,
crowded among beech trees and rising to 70 and 75 feet.
The most remarkable holly grove known to me is in the park of Gordon
Castle, covering a steep bank overlooking what used to be the Bog o'
Gicht, but now a fertile holm. It is not known whether these hollies are
of natural growth or planted, but they are evidently of great age;
indeed, they are mentioned as remarkable in a description of Gordon
Castle written in 1760--154 years ago. There are about five hundred
trees in the grove, irregularly scattered along the bank, fifty-four of
them being crowded into the space of about a quarter of an acre. But
alas! one may look in vain for seedlings which might ensure the
perpetuation of this ancient grove; all that may spring up are greedily
devoured by rabbits.
Talking of seedlings, the propagation of hollies from seed requires to
be set about in light of the fact that the seed requires a year of
repose before germinating. The readiest way, therefore, is to lay the
berries in moist sand for twelve months, after which the seeds may be
sown in a nursery bed, where they will soon show signs of life.
The largest, though not the loftiest, holly I have ever seen is the
remarkable tree at Fullarton House, near Ayr. It stands upon a shaven
lawn, which is greatly to the detriment of its nourishment, and it has
lost much of its height through decay of the upper branches. But it has
a single hole of 8 feet, measuring at the narrowest part, 3 feet from
the ground, 11 feet 3 inches in girth. The spread of branches is 189
feet in circumference.
Having been cultivated for centuries as a hedge and shrubbery plant, the
holly has sported into a great variety of forms and colours, none of
them, to my taste, the match of the wild type for beauty, and some of
them mere ugly caricatures thereof. The best variegated forms are of
ancient descent--namely Golden Queen and Silver Queen, which are quite
as vigorous and bear fruit as freely as the type. These are both very
beautiful; as to the other varieties, the world would be no loser if
they were all extirpated, unless the quaint little hedgehog holly,
described by Parkinson in 1640, were retained as a curiosity. To this
doom, however, I certainly would not consign the yellow-berried holly,
which gives a fine contrast with the common scarlet-berried kind, and is
stated by Cole (writing in 1657) to have been found in a wild state near
Wardour Castle. John Evelyn wrote in 1664 of a variety with white
berries; Loudon also referred to this, and also to one with black
berries; but I have neither seen these varieties nor met with anyone who
had. It is doubtful whether both writers have not been misled by
hearsay.
Evelyn employed all the resources of typography to express his
enthusiasm for this fine evergreen:--
"Above all the natural _Greens_ which inrich our _home-born_ store,
there is non certainly to be compared to the _Holly_, insomuch as I
have often wonder'd at our _curiosity_ after foreign Plants and
expensive _difficulties_, to the neglect of the _culture_ of this
_vulgar_ but _incomparable tree...._ Is there under _Heaven_ a more
glorious and refreshing object of the kind than an impregnable
_Hedge_ of _near three hundred foot in length, nine foot high_, and
_five in diameter_; which I can show in my poor _Gardens_ at any
time of the year, glitt'ring with its arm'd and vernish'd _leaves_?
The taller _Standards_ at orderly distances, blushing with their
natural _Coral_. It mocks at the rudest assaults of the _Weather_,
_Beasts_, or _Hedge-breakers_."
This hedge grew, not at Wotton, but at Sayes Court, Evelyn's other place
near Deptford, which he leased to the Czar Peter the Great in 1697, and
had occasion to repent having done so, for that eccentric monarch, in
the intervals of his work at the dockyard, amused himself by causing his
courtiers to trundle each other in wheelbarrows down a steep descent
into the said hedge, which was seriously damaged thereby.
No tree is better adapted than the holly for making a hedge; but it does
not always get the treatment necessary to produce the finest effect. I
have never seen any to equal the holly hedges at Colinton House, in
Mid-Lothian, which were planted between 1670 and 1680, and are now from
35 to 40 feet high, tapering upwards from a basal diameter of about 20
feet. The lower branches have rooted themselves freely, so that it would
be difficult to create a more effective barrier of vegetation. The
total length of these hedges is 1,120 feet, having been formed
originally with about 4,500 plants. Colonel Trotter's gardener, Mr. John
Bruce, takes a just pride in tending them, clipping them annually at the
end of March, so as to ensure a close young growth maturing before the
winter frosts.
The proper season for planting hollies is May, after growth has started.
If the operation is delayed till autumn, they make no new roots, and
suffer so much from frost and cold winds that many of them never get
established. This is one of those secrets which one has to find out for
oneself, at the cost of many wasted seasons. _Haud ignarus loquor._
Although in generous soil the holly will make long annual shoots, it is
very slow in forming wood, which may account for our neglect of it as a
timber tree. But the wood is of very fine quality, being hard and white,
excellent for turnery and for making mathematical instruments.
"We presume," says Phillips in _Sylva Florifera_ (1823), "that many
noble trees of holly would be seen in this country, but for the practice
of cutting all the finest young plants to make coachmen's whips, thus
leaving only the crooked branches or suckers to form shrubs." The demand
for this purpose must have diminished with the spread of automobilism;
but the ravages wrought on holly trees for Christmas decoration are
deplorable, raiders finding a ready sale for their plunder in all the
big towns. It is a gentle custom to "weave the holly round the Christmas
hearth"; but it is desirable that the weavers should observe some
distinction between _meum_ and _tuum_--pronouns which they seem to
regard as synonymous when applied to holly.
Pliny repeats, without comment, the statement by Pythagoras that the
flowers of holly turn water into ice, and, further, that if a man throws
a staff of holly at a beast, and misses it, the staff will return to his
hand. Here we seem to have a report of the use of the boomerang; but
Parkinson, writing in the seventeenth century, expresses lofty disdain
for such fables. "This," says he, "I here relate that you may understand
the fond and vain conceit of those times, which I would to God we were
not in these days tainted withal." The Scottish clans of Drummond and
Maxwell of old bore the holly as their badge.
In Lowland Scots the word "hollen" preserves the original English form,
which in Ancren Riwle (about 1230) is written "holin," being direct from
the Anglo-Saxon "holen, holegn." Chaucer writes it "holm," a form which
occurs in such place-names as Holmwood and Holmesdale in Surrey. It is
also preserved in the name holm-oak, _i.e._ the ilex or evergreen oak,
whereof the young leaves bear holly-like spines. It is an interesting
feature in both these trees, as well as in the holly-leaved _Osmanthus_,
that the leaves produced above the level of browsing animals are
spineless, such defence being needless for the upper branches. This
characteristic has been called in question by persons founding their
observation upon cultivated varieties of the holly, some of which bear
none but spineless leaves, others none but spined ones. It will,
however, be found to be the normal habit in wild hollies.
It is a hazardous thing for a Saisneach to dabble in Celtic etymology,
yet will I venture to mention that the Gaelic for holly is _cuileann_,
and may be recognised in such place-names as Cullen in Banffshire and
Lanarkshire and (aspirated) Barhullion in Wigtownshire. Far seen Slieve
Gullion, a cone of the Mountains of Mourne, in Armagh (1,893 feet), is
popularly connected with the name of Cuileann, a worker in metals in the
reign of Conchobar Mac-Nessa, King of Ulster; but it is written Sliebhe
Cuilinn in the Irish Annals, which indicates Holly Mountain as the true
meaning. From the same source we are able to interpret Cullen, Cullion,
and Cullenach, the names of many Irish townlands, as derived from
vanished hollies; and Cuileanntrach Castle, in Meath, destroyed by one
Rory in 1155, was so called because of the hollies on the shore.
Pea-flowered Trees
The enormous natural order of _Leguminosæ_ or pea-flowered plants
contains many of the loveliest flowering plants in the world, but among
them there are but three which, attaining the stature of trees,
contribute importantly to the beauty of British woodlands--namely, the
common laburnum, the alpine laburnum, and the false acacia or locust
tree.
[Illustration: PAGODA TREE (_Sophora japonica_)
IN THE BOTANIC GARDEN, OXFORD]
Every country child knows the laburnum, but it is not every planter who
recognises that there are two distinct species, bearing a general
resemblance to each other, but differing in the time of flowering and in
other important respects. The species most usually planted is the common
laburnum (_L. vulgare_), and of a truth it would be difficult to name
any tree more delectable with its "dropping wells of fire." It is
uncertain how early it was brought from Central Europe to Great Britain;
Tradescant had it growing in 1596; but if "awburne," mentioned in an
Irish Act of Edward IV. (cap. iv., 1464) among the four woods prescribed
for the bow with which every Englishman in Ireland was to provide
himself, means "laburnum," it follows that this tree must have been
in cultivation from very early times. Indeed, the botanist Matthiolus
mentions it as being better even than the yew for bow-making; and we may
recognise the word "awburne" in the old Lowland Scots name for the
laburnum, "hoburn saugh," both being from the alternative Latin form,
_alburnus_. Gerard called it the bean-trefoil.
There is but one precaution to be observed in planting
laburnums--namely, that they should not be within reach of horses or
cattle, for the seeds contain a powerful poison called cytisine. Some
years ago, wishing to do wayfarers a service by enlivening a stretch of
high road, I caused a row of laburnums to be planted on either side. The
trees had attained some stature, when a Clydesdale mare belonging to the
tenant of a field bordering the road suddenly died, her death being
attributed to eating laburnum seeds, so the trees had to be uprooted.
Neither leaves nor bark appear to contain the poison, judging from the
avidity shown by rabbits in devouring them. No tree is so vulnerable _at
all ages_ by those detestable creatures as are the laburnum and the
holly. The largest stems are liable to be barked by them in hard
weather. Some writers have copied Pliny in stating that bees will not
visit the flowers of laburnum; but Pliny cannot have been writing from
personal observation, for modern bees, at least, show no aversion to the
yellow blossoms.
The common laburnum seldom exceeds 30 feet in height. The largest I have
seen stands in the laundry yard of Alnwick Castle, over 40 feet high,
wide-spreading, with a double stem measuring over 11 feet in girth near
the ground. When Loudon measured it in 1835 the girth was only 6 feet 11
inches. It is a magnificent sight when in bloom. The timber of laburnum,
though now greatly neglected in favour of foreign woods, is of admirable
quality for cabinet work, being of a dark olive tint, and taking a fine
polish. Seeing that the laburnum is perfectly hardy in our climate and
grows rapidly in any well-drained soil, it seems a pity that the fine
material it produces is not more commonly used.
[Illustration: FLOWER OF LABURNUM]
The alpine laburnum (_L. alpinum_) goes by the name of Scottish laburnum
in the nursery trade. Like the common laburnum, it is a native of
Central Europe, being, probably, merely the mountain form of the other,
to which it bears a strong general resemblance. The readiest means of
distinguishing between the two species consists in the foliage and young
shoots. In the common laburnum the leaf stalks, young shoots, and under
sides of the leaves are thickly clothed with a smooth, silky pubescence,
whereas in the alpine species these parts are quite bare, which causes
the tree when in leaf to appear of a deeper green than the other. But
the important difference for planters is that the alpine laburnum
blossoms a fortnight or so later than the common laburnum, thereby
prolonging the display of these charming trees. Elwes describes the
flowers of the alpine laburnum as being paler in colour than those of
the other species; but according to my own observation they are of the
richer gold. There are some fine specimens in the Edinburgh Botanic
Garden, verging upon 100 years old, about 40 feet high, and now past
their prime. The timber is of the same fine quality as that of the
common laburnum.
Some beautiful hybrids have been reared between these two species, and
planters cannot be too strongly recommended to use them. The variety
known as _L. watereri_ bears flower-tassels 15 to 18 inches long. As it
is propagated by grafting on the common species, care should be taken
not to allow the stock to overcome the scion, root suckers and stem
spray being rigidly suppressed.
Another curious hybrid is _L. adami_, which originated nearly a hundred
years ago in a French nursery through engrafting _Cytisus purpureus_ on
a laburnum stem, with the result that this graft-hybrid produces yellow
flowers on some branches and violet ones on others.
Mr. Gerald Loder has secured a charming effect at Wakehurst Place,
Sussex, by planting wistaria to grow with laburnum, the flower racemes
being similar in size and shape, but respectively of the complementary
colours, yellow and violet.
In writing of a beautiful tree as the false Acacia, no reflection upon
its integrity is implied in the epithet. The Robinia is so called
because Englishmen have chosen to call it an acacia, which it is not,
any more than it is a locust tree, as the Americans speak of it. Its
scientific title is _Robinia pseudacacia_, commemorating Jean Robin, who
first reared it in France in 1601 from seeds sent to him from North
America, where it is very widely spread and much valued for the
durability of its timber.
William Cobbett (1762-1835) conceived an extravagant idea of its merits,
and predicted that it would supersede all British trees, including the
oak; but this expectation has fallen far short of fulfilment. Among many
other landowners who were induced to act on the faith of it, Lord
Folkestone, a fellow-Radical of Cobbett's, planted 13,000 or 14,000
locusts at Coleshill Park, Berkshire, in 1824; but of these only very
few remain now, none of them over 60 feet high. The fact is, the
_Robinia_ loves more sun than it gets in most parts of our islands and a
hotter soil. This renders it unsuitable for planting in Scotland,
especially in the humid west. There are, indeed, a few large specimens
north of the Tweed, such as one at Cordale House, Dumbartonshire, 64
feet high by 7 feet in girth; another at Mauldslie Castle, Lanarkshire,
60 feet high by 8 feet 7 inches in girth; and, most northerly of all,
one at Gordon Castle, which in 1904 measured 56 feet high by 9 feet in
girth. But, as a rule, it is only to be found in good form in the
sunnier shires; besides, notwithstanding the strength of its timber when
felled, the growing boughs are exceedingly brittle, which makes the tree
unsuitable for exposure to high winds.
[Illustration: ROBINIA PSEUDACACIA
AT WINCHESTER]
On the sandy soil of parts of Surrey, especially about St. George's
Hill, the locust thrives well, reproducing itself freely from self-sown
seed, and forming very lovely objects when covered with fragrant white
blossoms in June. Even in such parts of England where it does best,
it is not profitable to let it stand longer than, say, twenty or thirty
years, when it makes admirable fencing and gate-posts, which are almost
imperishable. At a greater age the trunk becomes coarse and deeply
furrowed, often becoming rotten towards the centre. Elwes mentions a
locust tree at Frogmore, near Windsor, as the largest in Britain, which
he found in 1908 to be 88 feet high by 14 feet 7 inches in girth. One
about the same height at Bowood, Lord Lansdowne's place in Wiltshire,
was slightly taller, but girthed only 8½ feet.
In France and Italy the locusts thrive as vigorously as in their native
continent, and are exceedingly beautiful during the flowering season.
They also make very effective hedges, being regularly cut over, when
they send up long and strong shoots armed with murderous thorns.
Few trees stand the drought, heat, and smoke of London as well as the
_Robinia_, which carries its verdure unchanged long after the limes and
elms have become seared and unsightly. Many a time, when Parliament
continued sitting through and after the dog days, have I refreshed my
eyes by gazing upon a fine _Robinia_ which stood at the corner of the
late Lord Sefton's house in Belgrave Square. But that tree is no more,
for, when the house changed hands after its former owner's death, and
was put into the hands of builders and decorators, they felled my
friendly _Robinia_.
There are three species of _Robinia_ seldom planted in this
country--namely, _R. hispida_, _R. neo-mexicana_, and _R. viscosa_, all
with beautiful pink or rose-coloured flowers. Of these, the first-named,
a native of Carolina, is the most desirable, but it is even more brittle
than the locust or false acacia. Its blossoms are so exquisite as to
entitle the tree to the advantage of being trained on a wall.
There are two other trees of the peaflower order which one would fain
see more frequently planted in the sunnier districts of Great Britain,
namely the Judas tree (_Cercis siliquastrum_) and the white-flowered
Sophora (_S. japonica_). I happen to be writing within a couple of
hundred yards of the finest Judas tree known to me--at Twyford Lodge,
near Winchester. It is 35 feet high, and in these early days of May
presents a sight which cannot easily be forgotten. The branches, still
leafless, are thickly set with blossom; flowers even break out from the
old bark on the stem, and the effect of the whole is a dome of soft
_vieux rose_ (see Frontispiece). It is a native of southern Europe, but
agrees perfectly with the climate of England, except in northerly
districts which are scant of sun, where it should receive the protection
of a wall to encourage the formation of flower buds. The Judas tree (so
named from the fond belief that the false Apostle hanged himself
thereon) is seldom to be seen in our pleasure-grounds, though it has
often been planted there; the reason for this being that it is of slow
growth in its early stages, and gets smothered with ranker things, often
of less merit.
[Illustration: FLOWER OF ROBINIA PSEUDACACIA]
The Pagoda tree (_Sophora japonica_) is a native of China, where from
immemorial time it has been used in medicine, its flowers, seeds and
bark being powerfully purgative. Its blossoms appear in August and
September, varying in hue from white to yellow, with a tinge of purple.
Those which I have seen bear cream-coloured flowers in long, loose
panicles, contrasting finely with the dark, pinnate foliage. The tallest
specimens I have seen are at Syon House, about 70 feet high. There is
also a very large one within the Tilt Yard of Arundel Castle, and Elwes
measured one at Cobham Park, Kent, which was 85 feet high in 1905. At
page 144 is shown a fine Pagoda tree in the Botanic Garden at Oxford. I
do not remember to have seen any specimens in Scotland. Probably the
late flowering habit of the tree would not suit the northern kingdom.
The Elder
In the humid atmosphere of the west there is no more inveterate forest
growth than the elder or, as we call it in Scotland, the bourtree
(_Sambucus nigra_), which, springing from seeds which birds, having
stuffed themselves with the sweet berries, distribute far and wide,
shoots up with amazing rapidity, indifferent as to sun or shade, for it
grows happily under dense forest canopy, although it is only in the open
that it makes full display of its great discs of cream-coloured flowers.
From the earliest times there have been two schools of opinion about the
elder. Pliny put faith in decoction of its leaves as a febrifuge, and in
his day malaria was a terrible scourge in Italy. In 1644 appeared a book
entirely devoted to its virtues--_The Anatomie of the Elder_, translated
from the Latin of Dr. Martin Blockwich by C. de Iryngio; and thirty
years later John Evelyn burst into a coruscation of italic type in
praise of this humble tree.
"If the _Medicinal_ properties of the _Leaves_, _Bark_, _Berries_,
&c., were thoroughly known, I cannot tell what our _Country-man_
could aile for which he might not fetch a _Remedy_ from every
_Hedge_, either for _Sickness_ or _Wound_. The inner _Barke_ of
_Elder_, apply'd to any _burning_, takes out the _fire_
immediately. _That_, or in season the _Buds_, boyl'd in
Water-grewel for a _Break-fast_, has effected wonders in the
_Fever_; and the _decoction_ is admirable to asswage
_Inflammations_ and _telrous_ humors, and especially the _Scorbut_.
But an _Extract_ or _Theriaca_ may be compos'd of the _Berries_,
which is not only efficacious to eradicate this _Epidemical_
inconvenience, and greatly to assist _Longevity_ (so famous is the
story of _Næander_), but is a kind of _Catholicon_ against all
infirmities; and of the same _Berries_ is made an incomparable
_Spirit_ which, drunk by itself or mingled with _Wine_, is not only
an excellent drink, but admirable in the _Dropsy_.... The
_Oyntment_ made with the young _buds_ and _leaves_ in _May_ with
_Butter_, is most soveraign for _Aches_, shrunk _Sinews_,
_Hemorrhoids_, etc."
And so on and so on, much in the strain of modern advertisement of
patent medicines. The boot is on the other leg now, for although hot
elder-berry wine glows comfortably in memories of boyhood, I know not
where I might now get a glass thereof, were I to perish for want of
it.[15] Thoughtful housewives still provide elder flower water on the
toilet tables of their guests, and methinks the ointment may be found in
some conservative nurseries.
Contemporary with mediæval esteem of the elder was the belief that it
was accursed because it was the tree whereon Judas hanged himself. We
know, of course, that in Southern Europe the beautiful Judas tree
(_Cercis siliquastrum_) is stained by that imputation, but Sir John
Mandeville (fourteenth century) assured his countrymen that he had been
shown at Jerusalem the identical "Tree of Eldre" on which the traitor
ended his career. The chief reason for hesitating to accept Mandeville's
evidence is that he never, or hardly ever, told the truth except by
accident. Shakespeare, however, entertained the belief, for in _Love's
Labour's Lost_ he makes Biron say to Holofernes, "Judas was hanged on an
elder," and science has lent assent to the rural fancy which gave the
name Jew's Ears to the flabby black fungus that makes the elder its
peculiar host by calling it _Hirneola auricula-Judæ_.
The pith which bulks so largely in the young growth of elder ceases to
increase after the second year, and becomes compressed, and the wood
that forms round it is exceedingly hard. In old times it was much in
request for making pipes and other musical instruments. Pliny has
preserved a quaint bit of folk-lore about it. He says the shepherds
believe "that the most sonorous horns are made of an elder growing where
it has never heard a cock crow." In our day we put the wood to no use
whatever, unless, in the West of England, butchers still use it for
skewering meat, which it was supposed to guard from taint. But--
No sound shall creak through the solemn pines,
The ocean shall lose its roar,
The wild horse cease to skim the plain,
The alpine peaks be level again,
The eagle forget to soar,
before our boys forget the simple craft that turns whistles and popguns
out of elder shoots. For this, and certain other qualities, the elder
claims a permanent place in our affection. It never winces or
complains under the harshest phases of our climate, and it forgets its
melancholy at midsummer, when an old bourtree, 30 feet high or so, set
with scores of creamy saucers, is a really beautiful object.
[Illustration: ELDER (_Sambucus nigra_) IN JUNE]
[Illustration: ELDER (_Sambucus nigra_) IN DECEMBER]
The elder has given names to many places in our land. In the Cornish
dialect of Celtic, now extinct, it was called _scau_ and _scauan_, and
is preserved in Tresco, Boscawen, Penscauan, etc. In old Celtic it was
_trom_, genitive _truim_, whence, as we learn from the Book of Armagh,
the town Trim, in Meath, was formerly _Ath-truim_, the elder ford.
Galtrim, in the same county, appears in the annals as _Cala-truim_, the
meadow of the elder. Trimmer, Trummer, and Trummery are Irish
place-names, all perpetuating the memory of _tromaire_, an elder wood.
The Truim, a principal tributary of the Spey, probably was originally
Amhuinn Truim, the elder river. In the Scottish lowlands we find
Bourtriehill, Bourtriebush, etc., while in England it is difficult to
distinguish "elder" in composition from "alder." Skeat suggests the two
words are of identical origin, and in each the _d_ is intrusive.
Elderfield, a parish in Worcestershire, Ellerby and Ellerton in
Yorkshire bear a pretty clear stamp.
The Hazel
To admit the hazel to rank among forest trees may seem like magnifying a
molehill into a mountain; but it was a growth so important to the
primitive community, as the only native tree contributing to winter
provender, that it would be ungrateful to omit it. I was greatly
impressed by this fact when, many years ago, we were exploring
"crannogs," or lake dwellings, in the south-west of Scotland, in all of
which nut-shells were found in quantity.
One instance was particularly remarkable. Dirskelvin Loch, a small sheet
of water in Old Luce Parish, contained a very large crannog, built, as
we roughly calculated, with between 2,000 and 3,000 trees. The loch
having been drained away, we proceeded to exfoliate the crannog. In
going along what had been the north-east margin of the vanished loch, I
found it deeply covered with hazel-nut shells--many, many cartloads of
them. Evidently they were kitchen waste from the crannog, drifted to
that quarter before the prevailing south-west wind.
If the reader does not consider that the food it produces justifies
admission of the hazel among forest trees, let him meet me at Merton
Parish Church, on Tweedside, turn off the main road to the left at Clint
Mains, and, as we travel towards Bemersyde, he shall see in the road
fence on his right hand a row of hazels which it would be a misuse of
terms to style bushes. Speaking from recollection, they stand about 25
feet high, with single stems that must girth not less than 18 inches to
2 feet. The fact is, the hazel does not often get a chance of attaining
its full stature, being commonly cut for copse or treated as
undergrowth.
He, however, who aims at growing hazel timber need not waste time in
educating our British _Corylus avellana_, but plant the Turkish hazel,
_C. colurna_, which is perfectly hardy in our climate. It is represented
by very few specimens in these islands, albeit it was grown in England
as "the filbeard of Constantinople" so long ago as 1665. The finest
trees of this species are at Syon House, Brentford, the tallest of which
was 75 feet high in 1904, with a girth of 6 feet 9 inches, and a clean
bole of 30 feet. The timber is said to have a beautiful texture, pinkish
white, and sometimes grained like bird's-eye maple. French cabinetmakers
import it under the name of _noisetier_.
Returning to our native hazel, we no longer depend upon its fruit to
sustain us through the winter, though large quantities of the cultivated
varieties, filbert and cob-nut, are still grown in Kent for the market.
Of the wood, it can only be said that it produces excellent
walking-sticks, and has no equal in hurdle-making. Modern anglers have
no use for it, preferring greenheart and split cane, though of old it
was considered a _sine qua non_ for rod-making. Thus the author of _The
Boke of Saint Albans_ prescribes:
"Ye that woll be crafty in anglynge, ye must fyrste lerne to make
your harnays, that is to wyte your rodde.... And how ye shall make
your rodde crafty here I shall teche you. Ye shall kytte betwene
Myghelmas and Candylmas a fayr staffe of a fadome and an halfe
longe, and arme grete, of hasyll, willowe, or aspe."
The prescription goes on for drying, straightening, and boring out the
middle of the staff, and then--
"In the same season take a fayr yerde of grene hasyll and beth hym
evyn and streyghte, and let it drye with the staffe, and whan they
ben drye make the yerde mete into the hole in the staffe, unto
halfe the length of the staffe.... And thus shall ye make you a
rodde soo prevy that ye may walke therewyth, and there shall noo
man wyte where abowte ye goo."
Seeing that the staff was to be "a fadome and an halfe longe" (9 feet),
and as thick as his arm, the wayfarer's progress might not be so "prevy"
as is set forth if water bailiffs were on the lookout!
[Illustration: AILANTHUS GLANDULOSA
AT WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD]
The Ailanto
In many southern parts of the British Isles _Ailanthus glandulosa_ has
attained forest stature; but it seems to require more sunshine than it
can receive in the average Scottish summer. Loudon, indeed, mentions one
at Dunrobin, in Sutherland, which was 43 feet high about eighty years
ago; but I have found no trace of that tree in the woods there. There
used to be one at Syon 100 feet high, but this has been dead for some
years. Elwes and Henry have recorded several in the home counties
measuring from 70 to 80 feet in height. Dr. Henry found it wild only in
the mountains of Northern China. Elsewhere in China it is cultivated to
support a certain species of silk-worm (_Attacus cynthia_); also a drug
is prepared from the root bark; but its timber is regarded as fit only
for firing, although in this country it has been found serviceable by
wheelwrights. It is said to resemble ash, but is of inferior toughness
and elasticity.[16] He, therefore, would be acting very unwisely who,
having land suitable for ash, should devote it to growing Ailanthus.
Indeed the tree, though handsome and hardy, would hardly deserve
attention from British planters, were it not for its admirable fitness
for street planting. Except the plane, no forest growth adapts itself so
generously to the arid heat, the drought and noxious air of London. For
this purpose, it is important that, as the Ailanthus is dioecious,
only female trees should be planted; the males exhaling a disagreeable
rammish odour. I have never been in Northern China, but I cannot
conceive that the splendid pinnate foliage of this tree can be more
luxuriant in its native forest than it is in a few of the driest,
dustiest London thoroughfares.
The habit of the tree in this country tends to forking, probably because
the leader is apt to be nipped by late frost; wherefore, to secure a
shapely specimen, timely use of the knife is necessary; which attention,
to judge from the trees I have seen, is very seldom paid to it.
The Pines
Except the birch, the Scots pine (_Pinus sylvestris_) is more widely
distributed over northern Europe than any other species of tree, and it
shows more indifference than any other to variations of climate. While
in Eastern Siberia it sustains without flinching a temperature of 40°
below zero (Fahr.), it thrives in Southern Spain under a summer heat of
95°. It seems as much at home in the sun-baked region of Southern France
as it is in the perennially humid atmosphere and cool soil of Western
Scotland and Ireland.
Yet there are limits to its cosmopolitan endurance. Not long ago I spent
a profitable day in the Arnold Arboretum at Boston, Massachusetts, under
the guidance of its presiding genius, Professor C. S. Sargent. After
wandering for hours amid the luxuriant vegetation of that magnificent
park, we stopped beside a mangy, stunted conifer, and he asked me
whether I recognised it. I did not; but guessed at hazard that it was
the Japanese _Pinus parviflora_. I was surprised to be told that this
was the best that could be done in that country with our own Scots
pine. From causes difficult to define, probably similar to those which
prohibit the growth of our common ivy in the Eastern United States, this
tree resists all attempts to make it at home in that atmosphere.
[Illustration: SCOTS PINE WOOD]
It may seem strange that this tree should be known as the Scots pine,
having regard to its enormous geographical range and to the
insignificant area which it occupies in Scotland as compared with the
vast forests in Russia, Scandinavia, and other countries. Its scientific
title, _Pinus sylvestris_--the forest pine--would appear more
appropriate. But it has received its English name because, although at
one time it was spread as a native over all parts of the British Isles,
it is now only to be found in a truly wild state in the fragments of old
forest remaining in Strathspey, Deeside, and here and there in the
counties of Inverness and Perth. From England probably it had entirely
disappeared when, in the seventeenth century, certain landowners
succeeded in reintroducing it; and now it has attained splendid
proportions in Surrey and other southern counties, and spreads freely by
its winged seeds wherever these fall on unoccupied lands. Were it not
for deer, sheep, and rabbits, most of our _dry_ moors and heathland
would be covered with pine forest up to the thousand feet level.
Howbeit, most of the moorland in the United Kingdom is the reverse of
dry. Except in Eastern Scotland and the Surrey uplands, it is usually
clad with a dense coat of wet peat, reeking with humic acid and inimical
to tree growth of any kind. One of the darkest enigmas of natural
science is presented in the remains of pine forest buried under such
a dismal treeless expanse as the Moor of Rannoch, and on Highland hills
up to and beyond 2000 feet altitude, far higher than any tree can exist
now. The explanation seems most likely to be arrived at in the direction
indicated by certain symptoms of the alternation of periods of greater
and less rainfall--periods comprising thousands, perhaps tens of
thousands of years. Trees, it has been suggested, might grow and
reproduce themselves at high altitudes during the drier cycles; but when
the rainfall and atmospheric humidity increased beyond a certain degree,
the soil would become covered with moss, seedlings would be smothered or
never start, and humic acid would render the ground unfit for any growth
except heather and moorland herbs.
Diligent collectors and enterprising nurserymen have ransacked the
remotest forests to furnish British woodlands with profitable
timber-producers and British pleasure-grounds with ornamental trees; yet
among all the scores of exotic conifers which have taken kindly to our
ocean-girt land, the Scots pine, in my judgment, need fear no rival in
beauty after reaching maturity.
It is not a little remarkable, considering how well adapted our moist
climate is for evergreen growth, that the Scots pine and the juniper
should be the only two conifers indigenous to Britain since the glacial
age. (The yew used to be classed as coniferous, but has now been removed
to a separate order.) The Norway spruce, as shown by remains in
pre-glacial deposits in Norfolk, once flourished in our land; but it
has never recovered a footing there since the severance of Britain from
the Continent.
No tree shows a greater difference than Scots pine in the quality of its
timber at different stages of growth. Unlike larch, which yields useful
and durable wood from a very early age, Scots pine is very soft and
perishable until the tree approaches eighty years old. It is true that
young deals and posts may be rendered serviceable by boiling in
creosote; but it is not until the tree reaches maturity that the timber
becomes valuable, without that treatment, for anything except pit-props.
In 1783 Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon, sold a great breadth of the
pine forest of Glenmore to an English merchant, who took twenty-two
years to fell it. The logs were floated down the Spey, and built at
Speymouth into forty-seven ships of an aggregate burthen of 19,000 tons.
When Mr. Osborne, the purchaser of the timber, finished his work in
1806, he sent a memorial plank to the Duke, which now stands in the
entrance hall of Gordon Castle. It measures 5 feet 5 inches in width at
the butt end, and 4 feet 4 inches at the top, and is of a rich dark
brown colour. The top of this magnificent tree lies where it was cut off
more than one hundred years ago, on the hill above Glenmore Lodge, 1400
feet above the sea, and is still hard and sound, 3 feet in diameter
where it was cut off. Now, had that been part of a tree, say, fifty
years old, frost and wet would have rotted it to the core in ten years
or less; but the snows and rains of a century have made little
impression on the bones of this giant. Mr. Elwes was shown a tree in the
King's Forest of Ballochbuie, on Deeside, which had been cut up after
lying for seventy years where it fell, yet the timber was quite sound.
Age apart, the value of Scots deal varies much according to the manner
in which it is grown. It is not the most picturesque pines that yield
the finest timber; for the result of growing singly or in scattered
groups is a spreading branchy habit, causing coarse, knotty wood.
Enormous quantities of Scots pine from Scandinavia and pinaster from
France, twenty to thirty-five years old, are imported into Great Britain
for pit-props. These might be just as well grown in the British Isles,
to the great advantage of rural employment; but British foresters are
only now beginning to understand the economic management of timber
crops. The great majority of woodlands in these islands have been ruined
by over-thinning. Welsh mineowners decline to use the knotty
British-grown pines so long as they can get clean-grown French timber.
Happily, a better understanding of the principles of economic forestry
is being arrived at in this country, so that more satisfactory results
may be expected in the future. Scots pine should be grown in close
canopy--that is, with a continuous cover of foliage throughout the
wood--until the trees are seventy or eighty years old. By that time
long, clean boles will have been formed, and the forest may be dealt
with according to the views of the owner, whether his object be profit
or beauty; for, unlike the oak, the Scots pine may be isolated from his
fellows after reaching maturity without suffering in constitution.
The mildness and humidity of the British climate are unfavourable to the
production of the best quality of deal, promoting, as they do,
over-rapid growth and, in consequence, wide annual rings in the stem.
The forester's object should be to check this by growing the trees so
close that increase of trunk diameter may be retarded, and the annual
rings crowded into small space until the trees are near maturity. That
is the secret of the superior quality and durability of Russian and
Scandinavian deals over all but the finest British pine.
[Illustration: FLOWER AND FRUIT OF SCOTS PINE]
Amateurs in landscape object to the scientific treatment of pine forest,
complaining that it creates a tiresome monotony. It is quite true that a
plantation of Scots pines of middle age is not an interesting subject of
contemplation, except to foresters. Nevertheless, it is half-way to what
may become one of the most impressive scenes in nature. The most
beautiful tract of Scots pine forest I have ever seen is that which
clothes the slopes of the Wishart Burn, near Gordon Castle. This was
planted about 180 to 190 years ago, and it is evident that the trees
have gone through strict discipline of close company in early life, for
their trunks are lofty, perfectly clean and even, carrying their girth
well up to the branches at 50 or 60 feet from the ground. The tallest
tree measured by Mr. Elwes in this wood seven years ago was about 117
feet high, with a girth at breast height of 1 inch short of 11 feet. He
estimated that it contained 345 cubic feet of timber. Many of the trees
in this wood have been felled; but there remain about sixty to the
acre--say, 6000 cubic feet per acre. They would be easily saleable
standing at 6d. a foot, or £150 per acre.
As for landscape beauty, it would be difficult to imagine a fairer
woodland scene than is composed by this company of aged pines. They do
not stand so close now as to prevent one "seeing the wood for the
trees"; the sun rays penetrate freely among the stately stems, which
have that peculiar bloom of pearly rose that distinguishes the bark of
old Scots pine. Aloft, the light flashes on the brighter hue of ruddy
boughs supporting the massive foliage; below, the undulating ground,
steep and rocky in places, is clothed with bilberry, fern, and other
lowly growth. There is nothing gloomy or dreary in the scene, which he
who visits it will not readily forget.
In Gaelic the name for the pine is _giuthas_ (pronounced "gewuss," with
a hard _g_). As is usual in the case of native trees, this word may be
identified in many place-names both in Scotland and Ireland; albeit,
sometimes pretty well disguised in modern orthography. Guisachan and
Kingussie may be recognised pretty easily, the latter being _cinn
giuthasaich_--"at the end or head of the pine wood"; but it requires
some smattering of Gaelic speech to avoid the ornithological suggestion
conveyed in the name Loch Goosie, in Kirkcudbright, and to interpret it
correctly as "the loch of the pine wood."
I have remarked above that a mature Scots pine has no rival in beauty in
the genus, and indeed the charming outline, blue-green foliage, ruddy
branches and roseate grey trunk of a well-grown Scot of 150 years'
growth can admit no superior in comeliness; but, on second thoughts, I
must admit that it has a dangerous competitor in the Monterey pine (_P.
radiata_ syn. _insignis_). Native of an extremely limited range on the
Californian coast, the first seedlings were raised in England in 1833.
There are now several specimens recorded as over 100 feet in height. In
rapidity of growth it excels all other pines, at least in the moist
climate of the British Isles. One which I planted in 1884 at Monreith
was blown down in 1911, and was found to be 61 feet 6 inches in height,
with a girth of 5 feet 4 inches, certainly a remarkable growth in 27
years. If the timber were of a quality proportioned to the rapidity with
which it is produced, the Monterey pine would indeed be a valuable tree,
but our experience of it in this country differs in no respect from
Sargent's report, viz. "Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle,
close-grained." If it were grown in sufficient quantity it might prove
good for pulping, but it is of no other economic value. Moreover, this
pine is only suitable for the milder parts of the United Kingdom--the
south and west coasts of Great Britain and the whole of Ireland. Almost
the only exception known to me is a tree at Keir, in Perthshire, which
in 1905 was about 70 feet high, with a girth of 11 feet. This must be an
individual of exceptional hardihood, for in most inland districts,
except in Ireland, the Monterey pine has succumbed to frost. In maritime
districts it is a most desirable tree, affording splendid shelter and
gladdening the eye with its rich foliage of deep but brilliant green and
rugged, massive trunk.
To describe, however briefly, all the exotic pines that have been
successfully grown in the British Isles would fill a volume in itself. I
cannot do more or better than refer the reader who desires the fullest
information about them to the great work of Elwes and Henry wherein all
particulars are given of about fifty different species. Yet I cannot
refrain from mentioning one European species which I regard as qualified
in large measure to supplant the Scots pine as a commercial asset in
British woodland. I refer to the Corsican pine (_P. laricio_) and its
varieties which, despite the insular title popularly given to the tree,
cover a range extending from southern France and Spain to the Caucasus.
Among these varieties, late authorities include the Austrian pine (_P.
austriaca_), which, if it be botanically identical with the Corsican, is
of very inferior merit for British planters. In extreme exposure it
forms good shelter, but its habit is coarse and roughly branching, very
different from the fine columnar growth of the Corsican. Moreover, there
is this singular distinction between the two trees--one of no slight
importance to foresters in our rodent-ridden land--that whereas hares
and rabbits greedily devour young Austrian pines, they never touch the
Corsicans; at least I have never known them injure one of tens of
thousands which I have planted, though I have heard of newly-planted
trees being attacked elsewhere under extreme stress of hard weather.
Dr. Henry has given a very full description of the pine forests of
Corsica,[17] whence it appears that, owing to the excess of sapwood, the
timber is of little value till the trees are 200 to 300 years old, at
which age the trunks average only 3 feet in diameter. A forest tree
which develops so slowly is not likely to find much favour with British
foresters; and the fact that this pine grows faster in our islands than
on its native mountains certainly does not lead one to expect a high
quality of timber. I have, however, cut poles of Corsican pine thirty
years old to support the galvanised roof of a hayshed. They averaged 8
inches in diameter at 5 feet from the ground, and were undoubtedly
larger and finer than Scots pine of the same age growing among them,
which I should never dream of using for such a purpose; but, as the shed
has only been standing for three or four years, it is too early to
regard this as a test. The merits of this pine already ascertained in
this country are resistance to wind exposure, straight and rapid growth,
and immunity from damage by ground game. These qualities render it most
valuable for planting mixed with other trees, for which purpose I
consider it superior to Scots pine. It requires, however, more
considerate nursery treatment, for its root system is straggling; and
planting out should be delayed till the middle of April and carried on
till the middle of May. Observing this rule, I have found the
percentage of loss after planting to be trifling, certainly not greater
than with Scots pine; but the results are not so satisfactory in
southern England on hot soils. The Corsican pine, however, demands all
the light it can get, being extremely impatient of shade, whether
overhead or alongside.
The great expectations formed about the Weymouth pine (_Pinus strobus_)
when it was brought to England early in the eighteenth century have not
been fulfilled. Known as the white pine of the North American lumber
trade, it received its British designation from the extent to which it
was planted by Lord Weymouth at Longleat. It is true that many fine
specimens exist in several parts of these islands, notably that which
was blown down in 1875 near Tortworth in Gloucestershire, measuring 122
feet high with 46 feet of clean bole; but as a forest tree it has never
taken high rank with us, perhaps because, generally grown as a specimen,
it has not been subjected to forest treatment, and the quality of the
timber is ruined by the uprush of a number of competing tops. It was
this habit that disfigured a Weymouth pine at Dunkeld which I measured
in 1902 and found to be 13 feet 3 inches in girth at 4 feet from the
ground, the clean bole being about 30 feet. I think this tree has since
been blown down.
Far superior to the Weymouth pine in erect habit is the Western White
pine (_P. monticola_), which, in other respects, resembles the other
very closely. This would be a most desirable tree for use as well as
ornament, but that it has proved susceptible to attacks of the
rust-fungus (_Peridermium strobi_), an organism which requires to pass
alternate generations on _Ribes_ (currant). A number of fine _P.
monticola_ in the famous woods of Murthly, some of which were over 80
feet high in 1906, have perished under the agency of this parasite. On
the west coast, however, this fungus does not seem to have made its
appearance. Of two trees of this species which I planted in 1876,
believing them to be Swiss stone pines (_P. cembra_), one is now a
straight, shapely tree 57 feet high, with a girth of 5 feet 4 inches at
5 feet from the ground; and both have produced plenty of seed whence a
large number of seedlings have been planted out.
No notice of the Pines, however fragmentary and superficial, could be
justified if it did not include a reference to the Pinaster or Cluster
Pine (_Pinus maritima_). British tourists on their journey to or from
Biarritz, Pau, etc., can scarcely fail to have noticed the immense
plantations of this tree through which the railway runs between Bayonne
and Bordeaux. For nearly 100 miles the woodland is well-nigh continuous,
consisting almost exclusively of this species, and covering an area of
nearly two million acres "perhaps" says Mr. Elwes, "the most extensive
forest ever created by the hand of man." Estimating the capital sunk in
planting, road-making, etc., since 1855 at upwards of £2,000,000, M.
Huffel put its value in 1904 at £18,000,000, the annual revenue from
timber, turpentine and resin being then more than half a million
sterling--equal to a rent of about 7s. an acre. In a wild state, the
landes thus occupied were practically worthless for agriculture.
Although the pinaster is a native of the Mediterranean region, it agrees
admirably with the soil and climate of the British Isles, thrusting its
boughs out in the teeth of severe wind exposure, growing to great height
and bulk and ripening abundant seed. Yet it is a despised tree with us,
few landowners being at pains to plant it now, although a considerable
number seem to have been planted about the end of the eighteenth century
and early in the nineteenth.
The Silver Firs
While the wide range of the English language over the globe is of
considerable advantage to commerce, and possibly to some other
interests, it is the source of some perplexity when, as in treating of
natural history or botany, precise terms have to be employed. Thus in
the United Kingdom most people know exactly what tree is meant by the
silver fir; but in the United States, with a population well on to
double that of the British Isles, the silver fir is understood to mean
quite a different species--namely, _Abies venusta_, a native of
California, not suitable for forestry purposes in this country. In like
manner, though there is no true cedar indigenous to America, there are
half-a-dozen trees there known as red cedar, white cedar, and so forth.
English, being a living language, is still fluid; meanings shift with
changes of environment; to secure precision, therefore, science must
have recourse to classical Greek and Latin, which, being dead languages,
change no more.
The group of evergreen conifers, then, collectively known as silver
firs, consists of about thirty species comprised in the genus _Abies_;
and these are most easily recognised by the position of the mature
cones, which stand erect on the branches, whereas in the other group of
true firs, the spruces (_Picea_), they are pendulous in all except two
or three Asiatic species. Another mark of distinction is the circular
base of the needle or leaf, which, when it falls or is pulled from the
branch, leaves a perfectly circular scar; while in the spruces the
leaves are set upon little pegs which remain on the twig when the leaves
fall. The grey or silvery bands on the under side of the leaf, although
it is from these that the tree is called the silver fir, are not an
exclusive badge of the genus; for some of the other firs, notably the
Manchurian spruce, display similar colouring.
The tree known in this country as the silver fir _par excellence_
(_Abies pectinata_) is the loftiest European tree. Probably the extreme
height had been attained by one grown in a Bosnian virgin forest,
measured by Mr. Elwes after it had fallen, "over 180 feet long, whose
decayed top must have been at least 15 or 20 feet more."
The silver fir is not a native of Britain, having been introduced about
the beginning of the seventeenth century. Its range extends over
southern and central Europe, from the Pyrenees on the west to the
borders of Wallachia on the east. Nevertheless, it has found a congenial
home in these islands, where, if it had ever received scientific
handling, it would have been far more highly esteemed for its timber
than it now is. Such handling we have never given it; the silver fir
has been used indiscriminately in mixed plantation, where, outstripping
every other tree in stature, it loses its leader, and sends up a number
of heads which get battered by the wind, becoming ragged and unsightly.
Now if these noble firs, instead of being scattered among trees of
inferior height, were planted in close forest, so as to be drawn up with
clean boles to a single leader, they would protect each other from the
gale. Then might be seen something of the true character of the silver
fir as it is developed in such forests as that of the Vosges, in Eastern
France, where a tract fifty miles long is clad principally with this
species, or in the Jura, where a forest of silver fir 10,600 acres in
extent yields annually 170 cubic feet of timber per acre felled. British
foresters and wood merchants set a low value on such timber as the
silver fir produces in this country; and small blame to them, because,
grown as we are in the habit of growing it, branchy and full of great
knots, it is almost worthless; but in some districts of Europe where
silver forest is well managed and felled in rotation, the deals are more
sought after and command a readier market than spruce. The thinnings
make excellent pitwood, and although, like spruce, the timber is not
naturally durable enough for outdoor purposes, it can be made so by
creosote treatment.
[Illustration: SILVER FIRS (_Abies pectinata_)]
The silver fir sows itself very freely in places where the ground
herbage is not so rank as to choke the young plants; but to allow
natural reproduction a fair chance, ground game must be rigorously
excluded, for deer, hares, and rabbits seem to regard this delicacy
in much the same light as human beings do asparagus. This tree--_Abies
pectinata_ (I must resort to Latin to distinguish it from the other
European, Asiatic, and American silvers) differs from every other member
of the genus (so far as my observation goes) in being a shade-bearer;
that is, it will grow under the shade and drip of deciduous trees, so
dense as to be fatal to the health, and generally to the life, of every
other conifer except the juniper. This renders it of almost unique
utility for under-planting, the beech being its only rival for that
purpose. It is true that the Douglas fir and the giant Thuja both stand
a considerable amount of side shade, but the silver fir thrives under
conditions of overhead drip which the others cannot suffer. One may read
in books on forestry that the Norway spruce is patient of overhead
shade; I can only say that, though I have sought diligently for an
instance of its doing so, and have seen many thousands of spruce planted
in faith of this misleading advice, I have never found a case where the
attempt has succeeded.
In planting silver firs it is important to take advantage of their power
of bearing shade, for the young trees are very susceptible of injury by
late frost, from which older and taller woodland will protect them. It
is remarkable how long and patiently the young silvers so treated will
wait for head-room--marking time, as it were, till the older crop is
cleared away, when they will go ahead and occupy the ground.
The silver fir is more exacting in the matter of climate than in that of
soil. The great forest of the Vosges is chiefly on silicious ground; but
that of the Jura, which is even finer, grows on limestone. The great
silver firs at Rosneath, probably the oldest in the United Kingdom,
stand near the sea level in deep sandy soil. They are certainly over 200
years old, the largest being about 110 feet high and 22 feet 7 inches in
girth. These trees are very massive, and branch into great heads owing
to their not having been grown under conditions of close forest. The
only rival in bulk to them is to be found at Ardkinglass, on Loch Fyne,
about 120 feet high, and estimated to contain over 1,000 cubic feet of
timber.
In many places on the south and east coasts the silver fir does not
thrive. It requires an abundant rainfall and a moist atmosphere, which
probably accounts for its inability to stand the climate of the Eastern
United States. There are, however, some fine specimens in Sussex (at
Cowdray there is, or was a few years ago, a silver fir over 130 feet
high, with a clean bole of 90 feet), and at Alnwick, in Northumberland;
but at Novar, so famous for coniferous trees, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson
has given up planting it owing to its inability to resist the attacks of
aphis. This seems to indicate a constitution impaired by climatic
influence, for insect parasites, though they certainly hasten the death
of a weakly subject, are not likely to prevail over a thoroughly
vigorous one. In Western Scotland, where, as in Ireland, the silver fir
makes grand growth, aphides swarm immediately upon any tree that has
been debilitated by late frost or other injury. On the other hand, the
Caucasian silver fir (_Abies nordmanniana_), which thrives splendidly in
many parts of Britain where the common silver cannot be grown,
frequently succumbs in the west to the attacks of aphis. At Benmore, on
the Holy Loch, about 2,000 acres were planted about forty years ago with
different kinds of conifers. I have examined the lists of the species
planted, and find that by far the largest proportion consisted of this
Caucasian fir. The forest remains, a splendid monument to its designer's
enterprise; but hardly a Caucasian fir is to be found in it. The
prevailing species are Douglas fir and giant Thuja.
Dr. Stewart M'Dougall has made some useful research, leading him to
identify the silver fir aphis with _Chermes abietis_, the spruce louse
which, as explained when treating of the larch, migrates to the larch
and produces parthenogenic generations thereon. Dr. M'Dougall traces the
silver fir louse to the same parentage. It follows from this that the
spruce is a dangerous neighbour to silver firs.
Less serious, because not hurtful to the general health of the tree, is
the "witch's broom" which forms upon the silver fir, sometimes greatly
disfiguring it. This is caused, or at all events accompanied by, a
fungus (_Æcidium elatinum_), which passes one phase of its existence
upon certain humble herbs of the Pink family, such as the mouse-ear
chickweed and sandwort.
For purposes of timber probably the common (_A. pectinata_) and the
Caucasian silver fir (_A. nordmanniana_) are the pick of the genus, but
there are also many other species of singular beauty. Their beauty,
indeed, especially in a young state, has proved somewhat of a snare,
inducing people to plant them in gardens and pleasure-grounds where they
soon outgrow their environment, and, being isolated from their kind, are
apt to send up many leaders and so forfeit their true character. Several
years ago I was staying in a country house in the south of England,
where a royal personage was paying a visit. It was arranged that the
said personage should plant a memorial tree; a site was selected on a
close-shaven lawn, and I could not but deplore the tree chosen for the
honour. It was perhaps the least majestic of all the silver tribe,
namely, the Spanish fir (_A. pinsapo_), a species which seldom responds
freely to the conditions provided in this country, and, when it does so,
is of gloomy appearance.
The largest silver fir in the world is the North American (_A.
grandis_), which in a young state might easily be mistaken for _A.
pectinata_, but soon exhibits its true nationality by the extraordinary
rapidity of its growth. It races upwards at the rate of three feet a
year, and, distancing all surrounding growth, suffers the penalty
inevitable in our stormy climate, unless it should be provided with
shelter from a sufficient company of its peers. At the Avondale School
of Forestry _A. grandis_ is reported to be less liable to injury from
spring frost than the common silver fir. No doubt there are spaces in
the wilder parts of this island where this grand tree might be grown
into splendid forest, but as an isolated specimen it can never develop
its true dimensions, which are out of all proportion to our native
woodland. The timber is neither strong nor durable; indeed, of the nine
species of North American silver firs, Professor Sargent reports
favourably in this respect upon one only, _Abies nobilis_ to wit, a tree
of which, personally, I have formed a very high opinion for the climate
of the northern and western parts of the United Kingdom. It has suffered
in reputation with many experienced planters, owing to a liability to
lose its leader when it outgrows its surroundings, as it very speedily
does; but, as in the case of the common silver fir, that is the
consequence of bad forestry; if _A. nobilis_ were planted in masses, the
trees would protect each other. No forester can look unmoved at the
group at Murthly in Perthshire, several of which are well over 100 feet
high. This fir is also exceedingly ornamental in a young state, some of
the seedlings from every sowing having foliage with a lovely glaucous
bloom. _A. magnifica_ and _A. amabilis_ are not easily distinguished
from _A. nobilis_ in a young state, until cones are produced. They are
beautiful, but comparatively useless trees, and there are no specimens
in this country approaching the dimensions already attained here by _A.
nobilis_.
Of the Asiatic silvers I will mention but two, both from the Himalayas.
_Abies pindrow_, a beautiful tree of columnar growth and fine glossy
foliage, has proved quite hardy in Britain. The finest specimen I have
seen is at Gordon Castle, Banffshire, about 70 feet high and a picture
of health. _A. webbiana_ is a tree of wider spread than _A. pindrow_,
and excels all other silvers in its splendid foliage, two broad white
bands on the under sides of the large needles thoroughly justifying the
epithet "silver." When the boughs are set with great violet-blue cones
this tree is indeed a beautiful object. Individuals of this species vary
a good deal in their endurance of British climate, at least in the west.
Its tendency to early growth renders it very vulnerable by spring
frosts, and when it has been debilitated by the destruction of the young
growth, it falls a prey to the attacks of aphis.
The Spruce Firs
When a British forester talks of a spruce fir he may be understood to
refer to _Picea excelsa_, commonly known as the Norway spruce, although
in fact much of the Norwegian spruce forest is composed of the Siberian
spruce (_P. obovata_), a species closely resembling the other, but
incapable of thriving in the moist and relatively mild climate of Great
Britain.
The so-called Norway spruce is not a native of the British Isles, its
natural range extending from the Pyrenees on the south to Scandinavia on
the north, and eastward through the Carpathian Mountains to Western
Russia; but, next to the Scots pine and larch, it is the conifer most
commonly seen in British woodland, and, where undergrowth is not too
rank, it may reproduce itself from self-sown seed. It has, indeed, been
far too extensively planted with us, probably owing to its cheapness and
easiness to handle. It is only to be found well developed in inland
districts, such as the valley of the Tay and Deeside, where it forms
really fine forest, and where noble specimens may be seen.
At Blair Atholl there was a grand spruce blown down in 1893, measuring
142 feet in height and containing about 420 cubic feet of timber. There
are still many lofty spruces in the woodland about Dunkeld and Dupplin,
containing well-grown, clean timber, and Messrs. Elwes and Henry have
recorded a number of trees in various parts of the United Kingdom from
130 to 150 feet high. As a rule, however, in this country spruce, even
when the requisite shelter has been secured, is not grown under
sufficiently strict forest conditions to produce the best deals; it is
commonly raised in mixed plantations, wherein, being patient of side
shade, it retains its branches, a habit that renders the timber coarse
and full of knots.
Probably the most successful result from a plantation of pure spruce in
Scotland was that obtained on the estate of Durris, on Deeside, where
the trees on 400 acres were sold standing at 60 years old, the average
number of spruce per acre being 560. As the average contents per tree
were 10 cubic feet, and the price realised was 5d. per foot, the value
amounted to £116 per acre.
[Illustration: DOUGLAS FIRS (_Pseudotsuga douglasii_)
PLANTED AT TAYMOUNT IN 1860]
It would be vain to expect any such return from spruce planted in such
situations as are frequently given to it. In a seaboard exposure it is
worse than useless, for no tree becomes more unsightly than a spruce
under the influence of salt-laden winds. For such situations, if spruce
be grown of any kind, there are other species likely to give better
results. I shall name two of these presently, but, first, it may be
mentioned that the genus _Picea_ consists of two distinct
groups--first, the true spruces, distinguished by having four-sided
needles; second, the Omorika spruces, which have flat, two-sided
needles. Inasmuch as some species of the second group have silvery
undersides to the needles, they are apt to be mistaken for some kind of
_Abies_, or silver fir. Here, again, the needle serves to distinguish
between them, for, as aforesaid, in the spruce family the needles are
set on little peg-like projections on the twig, whereas in the silver
firs there is no such projection, but each needle when pulled off leaves
a circular scar.
There are probably upwards of twenty species of true spruce, including
the Norway spruce. Some of them well deserve attention from the
arboriculturist, being exceedingly ornamental, such as the Himalayan
Morinda (_P. smithiana_), first raised from seed at Hopetoun House,
Linlithgowshire, in 1818, and now flourishing in various parts of the
United Kingdom at a height of 70 to 80 feet, with handsome pendulous
branchlets.
About Waterer's glaucous variety of the Colorado spruce (_P. pungens_),
there is current an amusing account of its introduction to this country
some five-and-twenty years ago. The late Mr. Anthony Waterer was an
enthusiast in his calling as a nurseryman. A traveller came to him one
day with a bag of seed which he said came off the bluest fir he had ever
seen. "How much do you want for the bag?" asked Anthony. "Two hundred
pounds," was the reply. "Oh! go along with you," exclaimed Anthony,
"d'ye think I'm made of guineas?" The man departed, but left Anthony
with his mouth watering (no pun intended) for the blue fir. He sent
after the traveller, paid him his price, and sold thousands of the
seedlings at half a guinea apiece. I cannot vouch for the truth of
detail in this narrative, but the tenour thereof is quite in accord with
Mr. Waterer's enterprise in his business.
Beautiful as some of these true spruces are, it is not among them that
the forester need look for a substitute for the Norway spruce; but there
are two at least in the other group which bid fair to oust it from its
undeserved predominance in our woodlands. The first of these is the
Sitka spruce, formerly known as the Menzies spruce, and still appearing
in some trade catalogues as _Abies menziesii_, though now recognised by
botanists only as _Picea sitchensis_. This grand tree, which in Oregon
has been known to tower to the height of between 200 and 300 feet, has
proved to be admirably suited for forestry purposes in the United
Kingdom. It is a moisture lover, thriving in soil too wet and sour for
any other conifer, and as it grows right down to the coast in Northern
California and Alaska, it does not share the dislike of the Norway
spruce for the breath of the ocean. This spruce, having been introduced
to this country in 1831 by David Douglas, has been long enough with us
to prove its quality, and there are many in the three kingdoms 100 feet
high and upwards. Probably the largest in these islands is one at Castle
Menzies, in Perthshire, which in 1904 measured 110 feet high and 13 feet
2 inches in girth at a height of 5 feet, having been planted in 1846.
The timber is suitable for similar purposes to those served by Norway
spruce; but the strong tendency of this tree to side-branching makes it
essential that it should be grown close in pure forest in order to
produce clean deals.
[Illustration: CONES OF NORWAY SPRUCE (_Picea excelsa_)]
The other tree in the Omorika group which probably has a commercial
future in this country is the Manchurian spruce, _Picea Ajanensis_ or
_Jezoensis_. I do not know that this tree is stocked by nurserymen in
this country, but seed can be obtained from Continental merchants, and I
am induced to speak favourably of it from the behaviour of about one
hundred plants which I put out about twelve years ago. In the nursery it
bears so close a resemblance to the Sitka spruce that it is difficult to
distinguish between the two species until the plants are three or four
years old; but after that age they differ markedly in foliage and habit
of growth, the Manchurian spruce being less inclined to branch outwards
than the Sitka and has no tendency to the characteristic of dropping its
needles which is apt to disfigure the American species. In the forests
of Yezo (the northern island of Japan) this spruce is reported as
growing to a height of 150-200 feet. Its growth with me is extremely
vigorous, and it seems to enjoy a maritime climate, which the Norway
spruce does not. Like all the spruces, this tree is well adapted for the
manufacture of wood pulp and celluloid.
I cannot part from the spruce family without going back to the
square-needled group in order to commend the Caucasian spruce (_Picea
orientalis_) as an ornamental tree. The slowness of its growth compared
with that of the Sitka, Manchurian, and Norwegian spruces may be thought
detrimental to its value to British planters for profit; but the grace
of its outline, and the fine, rich green of its shining foliage render
it one of the choicest of conifers. In the Caucasus it rises to a height
of 180 feet, with a girth of 12 feet; and in the British Isles, whither
it was first brought in 1839, there are many specimens between 60 and 80
feet high.
The name "spruce" has an interesting origin, about which some
controversy has been waged. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century
Spruce occurs in English literature as an alternative form of
Pruce--that is, Prussia. The Prussians were then distinguished among the
nations as great dandies. The chronicler Hall, in describing the
splendid attire of some of Henry VIII.'s courtiers, observes that "they
were appareyled after the fashion of Prussia or Spruce." Hence "spruce"
came to be a synonym for "smart, finely dressed"; and some etymologists
have argued that the spruce fir means the Prussian fir; but this has
been shown to be an error. The tree takes its name from the sprouts,
called _sprossen_ in German, whence is distilled the essence of spruce,
used in brewing _sprossen-bier_ or spruce beer. So the tree came to be
termed in German _sprossen-fichte_, translated into English spruce-fir,
though we do not brew spruce beer. Therefore the name does really come
to us from Prussia, though not in the manner supposed by the older
etymologists.
This digression into etymology brings to mind another word connected
with the spruce fir, namely "deal," which owns to one of the most
remarkable etymologies in our language. Although it has not been traced
to its original root, it exists in all branches of Teutonic speech,
always in the sense of a share or division. It also occurs in Gaelic as
_dal_, signifying a portion of land, as Dalnaspidal--the land portion of
the hospital; Dalrymple (_dal chruim puil_, the farm of the crooked
pool--on the Doon), and so on. The Anglo-Saxon _dæl_ meant a portion, a
share; whence we use the word in phrases such as "a deal of cards," "a
great deal,"[18] and have applied it to express the planks into which a
tree is "divided," or sawn up. From a Scandinavian source we get another
form of the word "dale," meaning a valley, as Tweeddale, Annandale,
etc.; for in Norway one dale or valley is "divided" from another by
mountains.
The Cedar
"The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,
But low shrubs wither at the cedar's foot."
Shakespeare's _Lucrece_, 664.
The frequency with which Shakespeare mentions the cedar can only be
explained as the action of a far-ranging intellect, beholding things
through the eyes of travellers, and weaving hearsay into vivid imagery.
He had, indeed, scriptural authority for assigning to the cedar royal
pre-eminence among trees.
"Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches....
The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him; the fir trees
were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his
branches, nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in
beauty.... So that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of
God envied him." (Ezekiel, xxxi., 3, 8, 9.)
But Shakespeare himself never set eyes upon a cedar: for Evelyn, writing
fifty years after his death, could but deplore that there were no cedars
in England--"I conceive," says he, "from our want of industry." He says
that he had raised seedlings, perhaps from the first cones brought to
this country. Howbeit, once this noble tree was established with us, it
throve amain, and it is now as familiar an adjunct to English manor
houses as the yew is to churchyards.
In Scotland it is not so often seen, more's the pity, for the fine
specimens at Hopetoun House, Biel, Moncrieff House, Dupplin, and Mount
Stuart, ranging from 64 to 88 feet high, with girths of from 13 to 23
feet, testify to its acceptance of northerly conditions. The largest
cedar recorded by Elwes is a splendid specimen at Pains Hill, near
Cobham, which in 1905 measured 115 feet high, with a girth of 26 feet 5
inches. Like most of its kind in Great Britain, this tree, having been
planted for ornament, has been allowed room to throw out mighty side
branches; but the cedar can be made to develop lofty, clean boles if
grown in close canopy, such as one at Petworth, in Sussex, which in 1905
was 125 feet high, 14½ feet in girth, with a straight trunk clear of
branches to a height of 80 feet, save for one small branch that has
grown out at 56 feet from the ground.
Having regard to the fine quality of the timber, it is to be regretted
that more attention has not been given to growing cedars under forest
conditions. The nearest approach that I have seen to this treatment is
in the fine cedar avenue at Dropmore, Bucks, where a large number of
trees, close planted about seventy years ago, have grown straight and
fair to a height of as many feet.
A few years ago, when the Duke of Northumberland was having some trees
felled on Solomon's Hill in Albury Park, a lofty cedar, whereof he had
never suspected the existence, was revealed. Forest discipline had
cleared the magnificent bole of branches to a height of fifty feet, and
fifty more must be added as the probable height of the tree, which,
owing to the nature of the ground, cannot be accurately ascertained.
In regard to the timber, the value whereof for building caused the
Israelitish Kings to levy such severe tribute from the forest of
Lebanon, what is produced in the humid atmosphere of the British Isles
is not so hard and durable as that grown in the Orient; but it is
extremely suitable for panelling and other indoor work, being of a
delicate pinkish hue, fine in grain, and beautifully figured. There is
no regular market for it in Britain, but the opportunity not
infrequently occurs of securing the trunk of blown trees, and ought not
to be lost. If one goes into the market to buy cedar wood, what is
likely to be supplied is not coniferous wood at all, but that of
_Cedrela odorata_, a West Indian tree belonging to the natural order
_Meliaceæ_. On the other hand, the scented wood used for pencils comes
from the so-called pencil cedar, which is not a cedar, but a
juniper--_Juniperus virginiana_--a tree of columnar habit and slow
growth, perfectly hardy in this country, and very ornamental.
The late Sir Joseph Hooker visited the cedar grove on Mount Lebanon in
1864, and found about 400 old trees producing plenty of seed, by which
the forest would soon regenerate itself if the ground were protected
from goats, which devour every seedling. Besides this grove at the head
of the Kedisha Valley there are four others in the Lebanon district, the
largest of which, at Baruk, was reported in 1903 by Dr. A. E. Day as
containing many young trees; but the older trees were being recklessly
hacked for fuel and house timbers. Besides the Lebanon groves, which are
specially interesting from their connection with biblical history and
the prodigious age of some of the trees, there are extensive forests of
_Cedrus libani_ in the Taurus Mountains, where the winter is very
severe.
In Britain this tree responds to excess of moisture by growing far more
rapidly than in its native forests; and, notwithstanding that
exaggerated views are entertained about the age of certain specimens, it
seems certain that it never will attain with us anything approaching the
age of the patriarchs of Lebanon. Assuming that none were planted in
Britain before the middle of the seventeenth century, and that very many
have died, showing all the signs of senile decay, we cannot calculate on
a duration of life exceeding 250 years, or rather more than the normal
life span of the beech and ash.
Fifteen years ago or so I was appointed to represent the Privy Council
on a Committee formed to take over the Chelsea Physic Garden from the
Apothecaries Company. One of the first problems that presented itself
was how to deal with an aged cedar of Lebanon that stood in the grounds.
Probably it was one of the oldest in Great Britain, for it was one of
those mentioned by Sir Hans Sloane in 1685 as having been planted in
the Physic Garden, but the dwellers in Chelsea had conceived a fabulous
estimate of its age, and, although it was stone dead, the mere whisper
of the need for removing it sent a wave of indignation through the
neighbourhood. Howbeit, the dead tree was an eyesore and a harbour for
wood-lice and other pests, so it had to go. It was felled and taken
away; but in deference to popular feeling this was done under cloud of
night!
The cedar of Mount Atlas (_C. atlantica_) was pronounced by Sir Joseph
Hooker to be, like the Indian deodar (_C. deodara_), really no more than
a geographical and climatic variety of the cedar of Lebanon; but whereas
the difference in habit and appearance is well marked and constant,
modern classifiers have assigned each of the three specific rank. For
the British planter the distinction between them is of considerable
importance. The Mount Atlas cedar, which forms great forests in the
mountain ranges of Morocco and Algeria at high altitudes, is far more
erect in growth, and has less tendency to wide branching, than the cedar
of Lebanon. The glaucous variety, with foliage of a charming silvery
bloom, is one of the loveliest conifers that can be planted, provided it
is raised from seed; but nothing except disappointment is prepared for
those whom nurserymen supply with plants raised from cuttings or grafts,
which are invariably lacking in the graceful carriage and erect habit
which distinguish this species among all other cedars. There is the less
excuse for propagation by these means, inasmuch as the Atlantic cedar
ripens its cones in our country as freely as the Lebanon cedar, and
seed gathered from glaucous parents will produce a considerable
proportion of seedlings with the hereditary tint.
The cedar of Mount Atlas was not introduced to England until about 1845,
but there are already many handsome specimens, measuring 50 to 80 feet
high. The tallest I have seen in Scotland is at Smeaton-Hepburn, in East
Lothian, which was 69 feet high and 6½ feet in girth in 1902.
The deodar, _C. deodara_, may be distinguished at a glance from either
of the other forms of cedar by the graceful drooping of the young
growth. A native of the Western Himalayas, at altitudes from 4,000 to
10,000 feet, it has not adapted itself very successfully to our mild,
restless winters and cool summers, the very reverse of its native
climate. It grows in its own country to an immense size, 150 to 250 feet
high, and as much as 35 feet in girth, with long clean boles. Elwes
records how a fallen deodar lay for at least one hundred years in one of
the leased forests of the North-West before it was cut up, when it
sufficed for 460 railway sleepers, narrow gauge.
Deodar seed was first sown in Britain in 1831, at Melville in Fife and
Dropmore in Bucks. Ten years later large quantities were raised and
planted in the New Forest, but so many of these died without apparent
cause between the ages of forty and fifty years that their cultivation
there has been discontinued. Similar results have been experienced
elsewhere, so it does not seem that this tree, however desirable as an
ornamental species, can ever be of importance for forestry in the United
Kingdom. Moreover, it is not so hardy as the other two cedars, many
having succumbed in all parts of the country during the severe winter of
1860-61. There are, however, many fine specimens in the southern
counties of England and in Ireland, ranging from 75 to 85 feet high. In
Scotland, Elwes has recorded nothing taller than a tree at
Smeaton-Hepburn, which measured 55 feet high in 1902. There are several
of about the same height at Galloway House in Wigtownshire.
On the whole, the best species of cedar for planting in this country,
whether for timber or ornament, is the cedar of Mount Atlas.
[Illustration: LARCH IN SPRING]
[Illustration: LARCH FLOWERS (MALE AND FEMALE) AND CONES]
The Larch
The European larch was known in England fully one hundred years before
it arrived in Scotland, having been introduced into Southern Britain
early in the seventeenth century. But it was long before this tree was
grown except for ornament and by those curious in exotics; it was John
Evelyn who first drew attention to the value of its timber, upon which
he reported very favourably after seeing it in Continental forests.
Writing in 1678, he refers to one growing near Chelmsford, "arriv'd to a
flourishing and ample tree, [which] does sufficiently reproach our
negligence and want of industry"--for not planting more larches.
The introduction into Scotland of the larch, the most valuable of all
European conifers, was delayed a full century after the tree had become
known to English planters. When it did come, it opened a new era in the
forestry of that country; and, if credit may be given to local
traditions, its coming was not devoid of romance.
Among the other resources of the northern realm, which had been sorely
exhausted during three centuries of war with England, Scottish
woodland, once so rich and extensive, had well-nigh disappeared, and so
bare was the country that when Dr. Johnson made his tour in 1773 he
declared that in the whole of it he only saw three trees big enough to
hang a man upon.[19] Nevertheless, after the Legislative Union in 1707,
landowners very generally set about planting on their estates, none of
them more diligently than James, second Duke of Atholl, who received
from a neighbour returning from the Continent the present of a few
seedling trees which he had brought in his portmanteau from the Tyrol.
It is said that these were given to the gardener, who tried to grow them
in a greenhouse. Having languished under such unsuitable conditions, the
plants were thrown out upon the rubbish heap, where two of them,
reviving in the free Highland air, took root and grew vigorously.
The date of this incident is variously given between the years 1727 and
1738; anyhow, there the pair of "Mother Larches" stood, close to the
west end of Dunkeld Cathedral, until 1909, when the larger of them was
destroyed by lightning, after attaining the age of 170 years or thereby.
It measured 102 feet high, with a girth of 15 feet 1 inch at 5 feet from
the ground, and contained about 530 cubic feet of splendid timber.
The Duke of Atholl was so well pleased with the growth and appearance of
these two trees, and of three others of the same age, which, I believe,
are still standing at Blair, that before his death in 1764 he had
wholly altered the appearance of the landscape by planting many square
miles of hillside with larch. His example was followed by other
landowners, so that during the nineteenth century larch was planted in
greater quantity than any other tree, except perhaps Scots pine, for it
was found that, owing to the durable character of the wood even in trees
from ten to twenty years old, the thinnings of a larch plantation were
serviceable and readily saleable.
Unfortunately, it became the practice to plant larch and Norway spruce
in mixture. No more mischievous combination could have been devised,
owing to a peculiarity in the life history of the spruce-gall aphis
(_Chermes abietis_), a plant louse which bores into the buds of young
spruce and lays eggs therein, causing the tree to throw out a cone-like
gall from the site of the puncture. This gall is the nursery whence
issues a swarm of sexual and sexless aphides. The sexless form has
wings, and, alighting on a larch, speedily lays numerous eggs, which in
turn are hatched into minute sexless lice, each with a coat of white
down, easily detected as snowy dots on the foliage. In a few weeks these
creatures acquire wings, and, despite their sexlessness, lay fertile
eggs, successive swarms being produced till the fall of the leaf.
Feeding by suction of the juices in the leaves, these creatures
seriously, often fatally, reduce the vitality of the tree, the foliage
appearing as if blighted by frost.
It must be admitted that this diagnosis of the life-history of the
spruce and larch louse is to some extent tentative. It is true that no
instance is recorded of the male _Chermes_ being found on the larch, and
it is also true that, as stated by Elwes, larches are often infested
with _Chermes_ where there are no spruces near.[20] But it is well known
that many, if not all, of the _Aphidæ_ multiply by parthenogenesis (that
is, without the intervention of the male), and although it has not yet
been ascertained that this can be continued for more than four
years,[21] that is a period quite long enough to allow of the swarms
inflicting deadly injury to any tree not in the most robust health.
Now, whereas larch and spruce may often be found growing together in
natural woods on the continent of Europe, it may be asked why the result
of planting them together in British woods should be attended with such
evil consequences. The explanation is to be found in the climatic
conditions to which the larch is exposed in these islands. Naturally a
mountain tree, in regions where a high summer temperature, long and
strong sunshine, with little rainfall, but with much subterranean
moisture from melting snow, promote vigorous growth, to be followed by
total rest during severe winter weather, the larch meets in Britain with
the reverse of these conditions--namely, a cool, cloudy, generally wet,
summer, and an open and still wetter winter. The wonder is that the tree
can adapt itself to the change as well as it does; there can be no doubt
that its constitution does not remain so well able to resist attack by
insect or fungoid parasite. Nature, which is ever as solicitous to
provide for the perpetuation of what we consider ignoble vermin as she
is for that of more admirable forms of life, has adapted the spruce-gall
for a dual existence upon two species of tree growing in company; but
she has also endowed these trees with a constitution vigorous enough not
to suffer materially from the presence of the parasite. When that
constitution becomes impaired by unnatural conditions of climate and
environment, the parasite gets the upper hand, just as lice multiply
upon a diseased bird or mammal. In the case of the larch, the mischief
does not end with the aphides.
Another enemy lies in wait for the tree that has been weakened by loss
of its sap. A minute fungus (_Dasicypha calycina_), gaining access by
its spores through any lesion of the bark, causes that incurable ill
known as larch canker, which has now become so generally spread through
British woodlands as to cause many landowners to give up planting larch
at all. In this case, also, we have a parasite which may be found on
larches in their native forests, but which the inherent vigour of the
trees keeps in check. That this is the true and only reason for the
excessive prevalence of larch canker in this country, causing
incalculable pecuniary loss to many owners of woodland, is shown by the
behaviour of the Japanese larch (_Larix leptolepis_). The fungus may
easily be found upon this species; but so great is the vigour of the
young trees that the fungus exists, and no more. The tree repels the
inroads of mycelium into its tissues affording the invader foothold
merely as a harmless guest.
Serious doubts are entertained as to whether the Japanese larch will
prove as valuable a tree commercially as the European species; it has
not been grown long enough in Britain to prove its quality as a timber
producer. But the extraordinary rapidity and vigour of its growth in
early years, its beauty and the readiness with which it takes hold when
planted out, have induced many people to discard European larch in
favour of this Asiatic species. Travellers in Japan report that the
larches of that country never attain the bulk and stature of European
larches; but it does not follow from this that they may not do so in
this country. The holm oak, more commonly known as ilex, is a native of
the hot and dry Mediterranean region, yet what is probably the tallest
specimen in the world is growing in the moist atmosphere of County
Wicklow. So with the horse chestnut, only to be found wild in a few
spots in Macedonia and Asia Minor, lands which can show none to equal
the noble trees of this species at Bushey and elsewhere throughout the
British Isles.
Meanwhile, the lesson of our experience is that we must still treat the
European larch as a foreigner of great distinction. Let it never be
exposed to contact with the Norway spruce, a useful tree in its way,
but, commercially, not half the value of larch. Let it not be planted as
a pure crop, but let it be mixed with other trees, as it is usually
found in a wild state. There is no better companion for it than the
beech, none, indeed, equal to that beneficent tree, owing to the manner
in which it screens the soil from evaporation and radiation, and
refreshes it with an abundant annual leaf fall. Finally, let the utmost
care be bestowed upon the critical operation of planting; see that in
removal from the nursery the roots are not suffered to get dry, as they
often become when sent to a distance by rail; and let these roots be
fairly spread in the pit dug for them, instead of being rammed in a
bunch into a mere notch in the ground, as is too often done. It is worth
much effort to retain such a desirable denizen of our woodlands in
health and vigour.
Attention has been drawn within the last few years to the Western Larch
(_L. occidentalis_) of North America, a tree which Douglas found in
British Columbia in 1826, and mistook for _Larix europæa_. It has now,
however, been recognised as a distinct species, the mightiest of the
genus, reaching a height of 180, perhaps 200 feet.[22] In habit and
outline it is very different from the European larch, still more so from
the Japanese species, for the side branches, though horizontal, are
short, which gives the tree a fine columnar habit. Owing to the great
height of the trees in Montana and British Columbia, and to the cones
opening and scattering the seed as soon as ripe, it is difficult to
collect a supply of seed, which can only be done from trees in
September. Dr. Henry visited Montana in the autumn of 1906 on purpose
to obtain a supply. Unluckily, very few cones were formed that year; but
a good supply was obtained in 1907, whereof I was given some. It
germinated freely; the seedlings grew as rampantly as those of Japanese
larch, forming beautifully rooted plants; I cleared the hardwood off
three acres of good land, and planted it with 12,000 western larch, fine
rooted plants, in the spring of 1910. The result has been discouraging;
about 50 per cent. died outright, and by the end of 1914 the remainder
have made poor growth. On the other hand, a dozen seedlings which Mr.
Elwes sent me, raised from seed in 1904, and planted on moist but
well-drained bottom land, have grown fast and well, being now 14 to 18
feet high. Evidently this tree, like the Sitka spruce, requires moist
deep land; the other place, though far from being poor, was not wet
enough for it.
There are three specimens of the western larch at Kew, one being 34
years planted and about 35 feet high; but the soil of Kew is too dry to
nourish without much coddling a tree whereof all reports go to show that
it demands so much moisture at its roots as would be fatal to the
European and Japanese species. Sheltered valleys on the western side of
Great Britain seem to be the likeliest environment for the development
of this most valuable timber tree, and probably nearly all parts of
Ireland.
The Yew
What the ash was to the Scots of old, the yew (_Taxus baccata_) was to
the English; for while the ash furnished staves for the national weapon,
the pike, which the Scots learnt to handle from their Flemish allies,
the most powerful longbows were fashioned of yew, and it was as archers
that the English excelled all other infantry until gunpowder came into
general use. Even long after the smoke and stench of "villainous
saltpetre" had altered the conditions of battle, much attention was
given to archery in the English army. Despite the many Acts of
Parliament enjoining the planting of yews, the supply had run short
before Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, so that in 1571 it was
enacted that bow-staves should be imported from the Continent (13 Eliz.,
c. xiv.).
Apart from military association, the yew is a tree of gloom, taking the
place in British churchyards which the cypress, "like Death's lean
lifted forefinger," occupies in Eastern cemeteries. Tennyson was least
likely of poets to miss the significance of this tree's melancholy; at
first he could recognise in it nothing else but that and its
changelessness:
Old yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the underlying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
Oh not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale!
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom.
Shakespeare received a similar impression:
But straight they told me they would bind me here
Unto the body of a dismal yew.
Sir Walter Scott applied the self-same epithet:
But here 'twixt rock and river grew
A dismal grove of sable yew.
* * * * *
Seem'd that the trees their shadows cast
The earth that nourished them to blast;
For never knew that swarthy grove
The verdant hue that fairies love;
Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower,
Arose within its baleful bower.
The dark and sable earth receives
Its only carpet from the leaves.
[Illustration: FRUIT OF YEW (_Taxus baccata_)]
Anyone who has stood on a summer noon within one or other of the two
remarkable yew woods on Lord Radnor's property near Salisbury cannot
fail to recognise the truth of this picture in every detail. The sense
of gloom and envious shade in those "swarthy groves" must oppress him
who enters it. They are known respectively as "the Great Yews" and
"the Little Yews," the former being of the greater extent--about 80
acres--but the largest trees are growing in the Little Yews. Although
these two woods are almost certainly of natural origin, traces of
replanting may be recognised here and there by the regular lines in
which some of the great trees are disposed, telling of a time when the
timber was in request for bow-making.
Tennyson came to realise that the yew really responds in its own fashion
to the summons of spring as briskly as any rose or lily, and that a
sparrow cannot alight upon it in April without disturbing a puff of
pollen:
Old warder of these buried bones,
And answering now my random stroke
With fruitful cloud and living smoke,
Dark yew, that graspest at the stones
And dippest toward the dreamless head,
To thee, too, comes the golden hour
When flower is feeling after flower.
Surely there is nothing more delightful in English verse than the
delicate phrase in which Tennyson touches upon some of the less obvious
workings of nature.
Evelyn observes regretfully in the seventeenth century: "Since the use
of bows is laid aside amongst us, the propagation of the eugh is
likewise quite forborn; but the neglect of it is to be deplored."
Howbeit, on the whole, one cannot regret that this sombre tree is less
often planted than it was when the Kings of England were striving
desperately to retain their rich lands in France. The yew requires two
or three centuries to acquire dignity. Such venerable ruins as the great
yew in the churchyard of Leeds, in Kent, measuring 32 feet in girth at
3½ feet from the ground, command admiration akin to awe from
creatures whose span is but three-score years and ten. So do the yews on
Merrow Down, near Guildford, reputed to have marked the Pilgrims' Way to
Canterbury; and the yews of Borrodale and Inch Lonaig, on Loch Lomond,
we cherish as traces of the primæval forest. But for decorative work,
for sheltering hedges in garden and pleasure ground, let us take some
more lightsome evergreen from the wealth of choice that the enterprise
of collectors has furnished us withal. The Lawson cypress, the giant
thuja, the so-called Albert spruce, and many others, are of far nobler
growth than the yew and equally patient of the shears, if clipped they
have to be. True, they are foreigners, but so are the Spanish and
horse-chestnuts, the silver fir, the sycamore, the English elm, and many
other growths which have become integral parts of our home landscape;
assuredly our forbears would not have hesitated to plant better things
than yews if they had been given the chance. That they did plant what
they had may be seen from the note made by Giraldus Cambrensis when he
visited Ireland in the year 1184:
"Here the yew with its bitter sap is far more abundant than in all
the other countries where we have been, but chiefly in old
graveyards; and of these trees you may see plenty planted of old in
these sacred places by the hands of holy men who did what they
could to honour and adorn them."
[Illustration: THE EARL OF RADNOR IN HIS YEW GROVE NEAR DOWNTON,
WILTS]
Given elbow room, the yew takes liberal advantage of it, and is apt to
spread to a breadth equal to or greater than its height. A singular
departure from this habit was made by a seedling found in 1767 on the
hills near Florence Court, in County Fermanagh, which grew in a strictly
fastigiate or columnar form, and became the progenitor (by cuttings) of
what is now known in all temperate parts of the globe as the Irish yew.
Geologically the yew is of immense antiquity in this island; indeed, it
grew in what is now the island of Britain before that was severed from
the Continent, as is proved by its remains in the forest bed underlying
the glacial drift on the coast of Norfolk, where its fruits, identical
with those of the present time, have been recognised lying among the
bones of elephant, rhinoceros, and four species of bear. A closely
kindred form of yew, with somewhat smaller seeds, has been found in the
German coal-fields, showing that the type has existed from an
incalculably distant period, before the formation of the chalk.
Botanically, therefore, the yew must be regarded as contemporary with
such archaic types of vegetation as the Gingko, the Umbrella pine
(_Sciadopytis_), the Cycads, and the Horsetails.
Of the age of individual trees exaggerated estimates have been formed
and statements devoid of evidence made. Thus a fine yew at Yew Park,
Clontarf, near Dublin, is confidently shown to visitors as that under
which Brian Boruimh, King of Ireland, died on Good Friday, A.D. 1014.
Very likely he breathed his last under a yew tree growing on that spot;
but it is incredible that this should be the identical tree, for
although it has a wide spread of branches, the trunk only measures 12
feet in girth. Compare this with the recorded increase of a yew at
Ankerwyke, near Staines, which in 1822 girthed 27 feet 8 inches, and in
1877 had increased to 30 feet 5 inches, and it is clear that the
Clontarf tradition cannot be seriously entertained.
It would grievously wound the feelings of a townman of Chichester to
express any lack of confidence in the tradition which affirms that the
yews in Kinglye Bottom, near that town, were growing there when the
Norsemen landed among them a thousand years ago; but listen to Dr.
Lowe's chilly analysis of the grounds for that belief. "Had it been said
that yews were there, the statement would have been accurate; but that
'the yews,' meaning those still existing, were then in being, is too
large a demand on our credulity, as there is no tree at that place which
exceeds 15.4 feet in girth, or possibly about five hundred years in
age."[23] In like manner the belief that Montrose rested under the fine
yew at Abercairney, in Perthshire, must be dismissed, for it only girths
10 feet 7 inches, indicating an age of about 200 years; whereas to have
afforded effective shelter in the year 1640 it ought by this time to be
at least 370 years old.
The usual indication of age by annual rings of growth cannot be trusted
in the case of the yew, owing to a peculiarity in its habit of growth.
Injury to a main branch often causes all that part of the stem with
which it is connected to die under the bark right down to the ground,
the injury being repaired by a rush of young shoots from the living
bark; and these, if they get head room, grow vigorously and ultimately
become welded together. This process vitiates the record of annual
rings, and although it is a means of rejuvenescence which no doubt
prolongs the life of the tree, it would not be safe to assume that there
is any yew in the British Isles more than five hundred years old. Dr.
John Lowe was at great pains to collect evidence on this matter, and
failed to obtain _documentary_ proof of any yew exceeding 250 years of
age.
The practice of planting yews in churchyards helps to account for the
extravagant statements about the age of certain trees. Generation after
generation has become familiar with seeing a yew beside the parish
church; the date of the building of the church being accurately known,
it comes to be assumed that church and tree are coeval. Dr. Lowe gives a
case in point of two churches in contiguous parishes in Kent, each of
which has a large yew in the churchyard reckoned to be the same age as
the church. One of these yews measures 16 feet in girth, the other 17
feet; but as one of the churches dates back to the eleventh century, and
the other only to the fourteenth, the tradition about the trees would
have one yew to be three hundred years older than the other, although
only differing in girth by one foot.[24]
The poisonous properties of the yew are pretty generally known; in fact,
Pliny says that the adjective _toxicus_, poisonous, was once written
_taxicus_ from _taxus_, the yew. But in the _English Encyclopædia_ is
the mischievous statement--"It is now well known that the fruit of the
yew may be eaten with impunity." It is quite true that the pulp
surrounding the seed, with its sweet but sickly taste, does not possess
the poisonous properties of the foliage and young bark; but the seed
itself is deadly, numerous fatal cases having been recorded as the
result of swallowing it. On the whole, therefore, it is best to give
children nice chocolates on condition that they leave the pretty yew
berries alone.
A yew bearing yellow berries originated at Glasnevin about 100 years ago
and has been pretty extensively propagated in Ireland, but I have never
happened to see it in fruit, though I have a clear recollection of the
weird yew avenue at Glasnevin.
The Irish or Florence Court yew, described above, found high favour with
garden designers seventy or eighty years ago, owing to its fastigiate
habit; but, at best, it is a funereal object, and a more cheerful effect
may be obtained by planting Incense Cedar (_Libocedrus decurrens_),
Lawson Cypress or Pencil Cedar (_Juniperus virginiana_).
Dr. Prior, in his excellent work on the _Popular Names of British
Plants_ (1879), argued confidently that the names "yew" and "ivy" were
but different forms of the same word; but the late Professor Skeat
declined to admit that there was any connection between them. It is an
elusive element in English place-names; Yeovil in Somerset being
assigned to a totally different origin. Yeoford, in Devon, has been
variously written Uford and Yewford, and may possibly be named from a
yew tree, and so may Uffculme in the same county. The Gaelic _iubhar_
(pronounced "yure") is more easily recognised in the suffix -ure or
-nure to many Irish and Scottish place-names. For instance, Gortinure,
near Londonderry, is written _Gort-an-iubhair_ in the _Annals of the
Four Masters_; Glenure in Argyll and Palnure in Galloway are
respectively the glen and stream (_pol_) of the yews. The word is more
closely disguised in Newry, County Down; but that name is explained in
the aforesaid _Annals_ as derived from a yew planted by St.
Patrick himself, whence the monastery founded there was called
_Iubhar-cinn-trachta_, the yew near high tide-mark. The name was
shortened into an-Iubharach, whence the transition was easy to Newry. In
Galloway, Palnure is the stream of the yews, and in Ayrshire Dunure is
the fort of the yew-tree.
The Cypress and its Kin
Among all the green things that clothe this wonderful globe--that globe
which man strives so desperately to unclothe that he may pile upon it
leagues of bricks and mortar, defile it with the smoke of myriad
furnaces, burrow in it in pursuit of pelf to pay for still more bricks,
mortar and furnaces--among these green things, I say, no group bears the
badge of clanship more openly than the Cypresses (_Cupressineæ_), a
branch of the great order of Conifers. It contains but a single species
indigenous to the British Isles, namely, the common juniper (_Juniperus
communis_), which cannot aspire to rank among forest trees. Agriculture
and mineral industry have extirpated it in many districts where it once
abounded; but it is still a characteristic feature in the landscape on
some of the English chalk downs, in East Anglia, the Scottish Highlands,
western Ireland, and other places where it has been allowed to survive.
Near Capenoch, in Dumfriesshire, there remains a broad hillside thickly
covered with juniper, which seems to have been the chief growth there
from immemorial time.
[Illustration: MONTEREY CYPRESS (_Cupressus macrocarpa_)
AT WAKEHURST PLACE]
Tenderly as we should regard the juniper as a legacy from a bygone age,
reminiscent of a scenery now no more, it has no qualities to recommend
it for planting where it does not naturally grow, but the cypress group
to which it belongs contains many foreign species which are capable of
being turned to great advantage by British foresters. Although this
group has been classified by botanists under a number of distinct
genera, whereof the nomenclature has been repeatedly changed in a manner
perplexing to ordinary persons, one valuable quality distinguishes all
of them, namely, the durability of the timber they produce. It is
recorded that the doors of the original basilica of St. Peter at Rome,
erected in the fourth century, were of Mediterranean cypress (_C.
sempervirens_), and that they were perfectly sound when that building
was destroyed to make way for the present church in the sixteenth
century.
It is not possible to trace to its source the association of this tree
with human mortality. That it was so associated in Pagan civilisation
may be seen from Horace's pathetic poem:
Neque harum quas colis arborum
Te præter invisas cupressus
Ulla brevem dominum sequetur.[25]
The Mediterranean cypress is only hardy in the mildest parts of the
United Kingdom, and is therefore not suitable for general planting;[26]
but it has many relatives worthy of earnest attention from our
foresters. About forty years ago the late Mr. Peter Lawson, of the
Goldenacre Nurseries, Edinburgh, told me he expected that the American
_Thuja lobbi_ (as it was then called) was destined to surpass all other
conifers for British planting. The name of this tree has been repeatedly
changed; perhaps it is most commonly known as _Thuja gigantea_; but the
Kew authorities have decreed of late that its right name is _T.
plicata_. In British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington, where it is of
more commercial importance than any other tree, except the Douglas fir,
it is known as Red Cedar; which does not help much towards
identification, as it is quite distinct from any true cedar. In its
native forests it soars to a stature of 200 feet; and, although not
brought to this country until 1853, has already reached a height of 100
feet in some places. The most striking example known to me of its
behaviour under forest treatment in this country is at Benmore, on the
Holy Loch, where about 2,000 acres were planted in successive seasons,
1871-78, and consist now chiefly of this Thuja and Douglas Fir. It is a
tree most easily raised from seed, which it produces freely in this
country, and it is most easily handled in the nursery. About twelve
years ago I raised about 70,000 from 15s. worth of seed; but the bulk
of these, having been planted on low-lying, damp ground, succumbed to
severe spring frost; while the remainder, planted on higher dry ground,
now average 20 feet high. Of the timber, Professor Sargent, the leading
authority on North American forestry, reports: "The wood is very
valuable; it is light, soft, easily worked, and so durable in contact
with the ground or when exposed to the elements, that no one has ever
known it long enough to see it decay." Mr. Elwes has given a remarkable
photograph of a western hemlock spruce (_Tsuga mertensiana_) at least
one hundred years old, growing astride of an enormous trunk of Thuja,
which is still quite hard and sound (_Trees of Great Britain_, vol. i.,
plate 59). I feel convinced that when the fine qualities of this tree
are better known, it will largely replace European larch in our
woodlands.
[Illustration: DECIDUOUS CYPRESS (_Taxodium distichum_) AT SYON]
Of the true cypresses there are four North American species likely to
prove of high value in the United Kingdom; but in regard to them, it is
of the highest importance to use only plants raised from seed.
Unluckily, they all strike readily from cuttings, and many of us have
formed a poor opinion of these trees from being supplied with plants
propagated in that manner, which never can develop their true character,
but grow into unwieldy, branchy bushes. Lawson's cypress (_Cupressus
lawsoniana_) has specially suffered in esteem from this cause; but when
reared from seed, which is an easy process, it makes fine forest stock,
provided attention is paid to removing superfluous leaders till the
young trees are 7 or 8 feet high.
Sargent states that this cypress (which is named after Mr. Peter Lawson,
who first raised it from seed in this country in 1854) often reaches a
height of 200 feet, with a girth of 36 feet. It agrees thoroughly with
British conditions of soil and climate; there are many in various parts
of the United Kingdom from 60 to 70 feet high. The timber is of finer
quality than that of _Thuja_, and equally durable; but in Professor
Sargent's opinion the Nootka Sound cypress (_C. nootkatensis_) is a more
valuable tree, though slower in growth and inferior in bulk to the
Lawson. While the Lawson cypress agrees with a considerable amount of
moisture in the soil, provided the drainage is good, the Nootka cypress
seems to do best on soil too poor and dry for the other. Both species
are impatient of overhead shade and extreme wind exposure, but both are
perfectly hardy and very beautiful when grown in reasonable shelter from
storms.
Most rapid in growth of all the cypress tribe is the Monterey cypress
(_C. macrocarpa_), but it can only be recommended for mild districts
near the sea. It will not stand the frost in most inland districts, but
those which I have growing within a mile or two of the coast came unhurt
through the long and terrible frost of January and February, 1895, when
the mercury fell below zero. This tree is remarkable by reason of its
being found native only in two places, both in California, at Monterey,
and on the island of Guadalupe. In neither place does it extend much
beyond an area of three square miles. In maritime districts of the
United Kingdom it grows most vigorously, and ripens seed freely, forming
a splendid shelter for other trees. But its branch growth is so
luxuriant as to be apt to outstrip the root system; wherefore, to
prevent young plants getting swung by sea winds, it is well to shorten
the branches till the trees are well established.
The Monterey cypress is of a beautiful bright green, and forms a lovely
hedge, for which purpose it may be propagated to any extent by cuttings;
but for forest purposes seedlings should invariably be used. Mr. Elwes
pronounces the timber "to be so coarse and knotty as compared with that
of other cypresses, that it is not likely to be of any economic value";
but that is owing to the manner in which it is usually grown in this
country, as isolated specimens, which encourages a rampant growth of
side branches. Reared in close canopy, it develops fine clean boles, and
Proffessor Sargent reports the timber as being "heavy, hard, strong,
very durable, close grained." It is indeed surprising how wood of that
weight and quality can be so rapidly produced. In its own country,
exposed to the full blast of Pacific gales, it appears never to exceed
60 or 70 feet in height; but there are already in the United Kingdom
many taller than that, though the seeds were not brought to this country
till 1838. Probably the largest Monterey cypress in England is one at
Lamorran in Cornwall, which in 1905 gave a height of 86 feet, and a
girth of 12½ feet.
No notice of the _Cupressineæ_, however succinct, would be complete
without mention of what is called in North America the incense cedar
(_Libocedrus decurrens_), though it is of small account as a timber
producer. Of all the group it lends itself most conspicuously to
landscape effect, retaining its close, columnar figure quite
independently of shears or side shade and distinguished by its rich,
velvety, dark green foliage. It was not brought to Britain till 1853,
yet there are with us many specimens over 60 feet high. Again let me
warn those desiring to see the true character of this fine tree to have
nothing to do with plants reared from cuttings.
The same applies to an Asiatic member of this group, namely, the Hinoki
cypress (_C. obtusa_), so highly prized by the Japanese for its
beautiful, satiny timber. It grows to a height of 100 feet in Japan,
where it is much planted, being indigenous in the central and southern
parts of the main island. It was brought to England in 1861. I have
raised a quantity from seed, and it has proved quite hardy; but its
growth is not nearly so free as that of the above-named American
species, and it cannot be said that it is likely to be a profitable
forest growth with us. It is, however, a very pretty tree in its youth.
The Wellingtonia and the Redwood
In the vegetable world stature and bulk afford no index to longevity.
The lofty pine may be but a stripling in years compared with the lowly
lichen that clings like paint to the rock at its foot. One may be able
to calculate pretty nearly the age of yonder massive oak; yet before the
acorn whence it sprang had ripened, the primrose in its shade may have
brightened many springtides with its blossoms.
Howbeit there are certain forest growths that go on adding indefinitely
to their bulk during such vast spaces of time as almost to stagger the
imagination. The man who can contemplate unmoved a tree, still growing
vigorously, which was flourishing when Aaron's rod budded before Pharaoh
must be of sterner stuff than most of us; yet such trees may be seen, if
the German botanist Mayr's estimate be correct of the age of the largest
Wellingtonia which he measured. This giant at 13 feet above the ground
was 99 feet in circumference, 11 yards in diameter, and showed 4250
rings of annual growth. Even if Sir Joseph Hooker's cautious view be
adopted that this species of tree may make two rings of growth in each
year, that carries one back to a time centuries before our country
became a province of the Roman Empire.
When seeds of this giant tree were first brought to England by Mr. J. D.
Matthew in 1853, we Britons named it _Wellingtonia_ in pious memory of
the Iron Duke, who had breathed his last in the previous year, and that
is still the name it goes by popularly with us. Americans, not less
patriotically, called it _Washingtonia_; but we are now bidden by
botanists to speak of it as _Sequoia_, a genus of conifers composed of
only two species. _Sequoia gigantea_, then, is the mightiest of
evergreens, for although the other species, the Redwood (_S.
sempervirens_), may exceed it in stature, ranging to a height of 340
feet, it does not build up such an enormous trunk. The largest Redwood
measured by Dr. Mayr in 1885 was 308 feet high, but not more than 46
feet in girth at 6½ feet from the ground. Its bole was clear of
branches to a height of 230 feet. It may enable readers to realise these
vast dimensions if they bear in mind that Messrs. Elwes and Henry have
not found a tree of any kind in the British Isles 150 feet high, except
the great black Italian poplar at Albury Park, and here and there a
larch and spruce reaching to that stature.
Sixty years' experience has proved to British planters that, given
suitably generous soil and adequate shelter, the Wellingtonia can be
grown in these islands as successfully as in its native district, to
wit, the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada of California between the
altitudes of 5,000 and 8,500 feet. Indeed, there is no reason to doubt
that, in sheltered glens and river valleys, it is capable of attaining
in the Old World dimensions as great as those it has reached in the New.
Owing to the ease with which they can be raised from seed, Wellingtonias
have been very widely distributed through British and Irish counties,
and there are already many of 100 feet and upwards in height--an
astonishing growth for less than half a century. Thus a Wellingtonia at
Fonthill, which is known to have been raised from seed in 1861, was 102
feet high in 1906, with a girth of 17 feet, being then only 45 years
old. This tree stands in a favourably sheltered hollow, and so does one
of the tallest I have seen in this country, namely, one at Albury Park,
which stands on the brink of the lucid Tillingbourne. This tree, planted
in 1857, was 54 feet high in 1879, and 97 feet in 1913.
It is obvious that, under ordinary conditions, the Wellingtonia in this
country must outstrip all surrounding trees of other sorts, and suffer
from wind exposure, unless planted in close forest of its own kind. It
must be confessed that he would be ill-advised who should devote good
land to such a crop, for the timber of Wellingtonia, though very
durable, is weak, coarse, and quite unsaleable in the European market.
Unhappily, the inferiority of the timber has not protected the trees
from the reckless destruction of the beautiful forest by lumberers. Huge
trees have been felled which, in falling, have smashed many others;
fires have been frequent, and it is not unlikely that this, the
mightiest of all green things of the earth, would have been exterminated
ere this, but for protective State legislation. "Big Tree wood," says
Professor Jepson, "has extraordinary durability, fallen logs in the
forest having remained sound for several centuries. It is used for
posts, farm-buildings, shingles, raisin-trays, and for stakes in
vineyards. It seems unfortunate that timber of such magnificent
proportions cannot be applied to larger purposes than grape-vine
stakes."[27] Professor Jepson undertook a census of the remaining
forest; from the list published in his _Silva of California_ it appears
that there are still scattered groves over an area of some 38,000 acres,
although in one of these groves there are only six trees left, while
some others contain no more than from 30 to 150. In twenty-two groves,
however, the trees were so numerous that they were not counted.
Seeing that British planters must not look for any profit from the
timber which is so liberally produced by the Wellingtonia, there remain
only its decorative qualities to recommend it. These are considerable,
provided right advantage be taken of them. Isolated specimens in
sheltered places grow into majestic objects with broadly buttressed
trunks and dense green curtains of leafage; but perhaps the most
impressive effects are obtained by setting Wellingtonia in formal
avenues. Such an avenue was planted by the late Mr. Walter of Bearwood
at Wellington College in 1869. This avenue is 1,200 yards long and 25
yards broad; the trees were planted 54 feet apart, and as they now
average 80 feet high, and are clothed with verdure from the ground to
the summit, the effect is very stately and impressive.
Turning now to the other species in this genus--the Redwood (_Sequoia
sempervirens_), we have a tree equalling, or even excelling, the
Wellingtonia in height, and greatly its superior both in beauty and
economic value. Originally this splendid tree occupied a far more
extensive area in California and Oregon than the Wellingtonia; but
lumberers have swept away great tracts of forest. In one respect the
Redwood resists extermination better than any other of its kin, being
almost, if not quite, unique among conifers (the yew being no longer
classed as a conifer) in sending up suckers profusely, which secures
natural regeneration after the parent trees have been felled.
The Redwood Park in California is a tract of forest 3,800 acres in
extent which the State Legislature secured at a price of 250,000 dollars
in order to preserve the forest in perpetuity.
"It is," says Mr. Elwes in _The Trees of Great Britain_, "the most
impressive of all forests, being remarkable not only for the
immense size of the trees, but also for their extraordinary density
on the ground. A single acre has yielded 100,000 cubic feet of
merchantable timber.[28] ... I saw a stand close to Smith River
where the trees were of enormous size and of incredible density on
the ground. One tree measured 51 feet in girth."
The Redwood was first introduced to Great Britain about 1847, and has
proved fairly hardy if protected from frost in the seedling stage. It
is, however, impatient of wind exposure, and seldom displays its best
qualities unless planted in close forest. In suitable environment this
tree develops into one of the most beautiful trees imaginable, owing to
its stately habit, deeply fissured bark of a rich russet hue, and
luxuriant, glossy foliage.
Three Redwoods were planted in a glen at Cuffnells, near Lyndhurst, in
1855; these measured in 1906 from 98 to 105 feet high, with girths from
10 to 15 feet. This shows an average annual increase of height of 2 feet
over a period of fifty years, which is far in excess of any other tree
grown in the British Isles, not excepting the Wellingtonia. The
consequence is that, as the Redwood has nowhere been planted in
extensive masses, the leaders are peculiarly liable to be destroyed by
high cold winds. Moreover, the quality of the timber produced in Great
Britain cannot be rightly estimated until the trees shall have been
subjected to close forest treatment, for in isolated specimens the
texture of the wood is spoilt by excessive width between the annual
rings.
Having regard to the value of Redwood timber exported from America, and
the rapidity with which it is developed, this species is well worth
attention from any person or corporation planting on a large scale in a
sufficiently humid climate, for it is to be noted that it is very
impatient of drought. The Redwood Belt, extending from Sonoma County to
Del Norte County, enjoys an average annual rainfall of 50 inches. Much
less than that will serve the tree in the British Isles, owing to the
sun being far less powerful over here than it is in California.
Propagation is done from suckers, for, as is the case with some other
trees--the English elm, for instance--the production of fertile seed is
diminished or disappears with the acquirement of the suckering habit.
It has been claimed for the Redwood that it is the tallest growth in the
world; but Australians dispute its title to that distinction on behalf
of _Eucalyptus amygdalina_. The data for a verdict are as follows: In
1896 Professor Sargent measured a Redwood felled on the Eel River, and
found it to be 340 feet high and 31 feet 3 inches in girth at 6½ feet
from the ground. The rings of annual growth numbered 662. On the other
hand, the height of two fallen eucalyptus have been recorded as 420 and
471 feet (the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral is 404 feet high); but Mr.
Malden, Director of Sydney Botanic Garden, has declined to receive these
measurements as trustworthy. It is very much to be desired that the
truth should be ascertained before it be too late.
Not far in kin from the Redwood is the Western Hemlock (_Tsuga
albertiana_), not to be confused (as it often has been by nurserymen and
planters) with the Canadian Hemlock (_T. canadensis_), which is a tree
of very inferior beauty and merit to the other. The Western Hemlock
forms splendid forests in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon,
attaining its greatest dimensions near the sea-coast, where Professor
Sargent has recorded specimens 200 feet high and 20 or 30 feet in girth.
Introduced to Great Britain by Jeffrey in 1851, it has proved itself
contented with our climate, and is certainly one of the loveliest of
exotic conifers. There are now many specimens in the United Kingdom
measuring from 70 to 100 feet high. It is frost-hardy; but, to develop
its true grace, must have shelter from wind exposure. Sargent reports
very favourably of the timber, which is said to be disliked by rats and
mice; but it does not seem to have been imported into Europe. Seed is
plentifully produced, wherefore there is no excuse for the nefarious
trick of reproduction by cuttings.
[Illustration: GINGKO BILOBA
AT THE GROVE, WATFORD]
The Gingko
The Gingko or Maidenhair-tree (_Gingko biloba_) is among the most
interesting of trees, owing to its being, like the Araucaria, a survival
of the vegetation prevailing when the aspect of our globe was very
different from that which it bears now. Both Gingko and Araucaria were
classed as conifers by the older botanists; but certain archaic features
in each have been recognised as justifying their rearrangement in two
separate natural orders.
The gingko has not been found anywhere in a wild state, and owes its
preservation from an extremely remote past to the care which the Chinese
have always shown to preserve part of the natural forest round their
temples. It is in such situations that it is now found in China, Corea,
and Japan; but Dr. Henry suggests that it may not improbably exist in
the unexplored forests of central China.
The true affinity of this strange tree is with the ferns and cycads,
dominant orders in the Mesozoic world. It is, however, a true phanerogam
or flowering plant, the male and female flowers being born on separate
trees. The fruit and leaves found in the Lias clay at Ardtun, in the
Isle of Mull, have been pronounced indistinguishable from those of the
existing species.[29] What a vast chasm of time divides us from the
summers when these fruit and leaves were produced! Since they fell our
land has been ploughed and scarred by the land ice of successive glacial
periods, each enduring for unnumbered thousands of years; yet these
fragile relics, drifting into clefts and crannies and overlaid by the
clay which the ice ground out of the rocks, have survived the rocks
themselves. And now the climate of these islands has been tempered
again, so that the gingko finds a congenial home in our pleasure
grounds.
It is a very beautiful tree, provided it is raised from seed, or, at
least, propagated by layers. Unluckily, planters are very apt to be
supplied with young trees reared from cuttings, which never turn out
well, for seed is seldom produced in this country, owing to the
different sexes not being planted together, and the rapidity with which
imported seeds lose their vitality. The foliage is unlike that of any
other tree grown in Great Britain, the leathery, light green, fan-shaped
leaves suggesting the design of a gigantic maidenhair fern, whence it
used to be known botanically as _Salisburia adiantifolia_. The foliage
turns a beautiful clear yellow in autumn.
The first European botanist to mention the gingko was Kæmpfer, who found
it in Japan in 1690, but it was not introduced to England until more
than sixty years later. In Scotland it does not seem to have been often
planted, though it is quite hardy in the milder districts. The only
considerable specimen I have seen north of the Tweed was one 40 or 50
feet high on the banks of the Ayr at Auchincruive. This was blown down
some years ago, but when I saw it last it was growing vigorously from
the stool.
There are many fine gingkos in England. The finest known to me are at
The Grove, near Watford, 68 feet high, with a girth of 8 feet 5 inches
in 1904 (see plate at page 228). One at Panshanger, in the same county,
of which I did not measure the height, was reported to be 70 feet, and I
found the girth to be 8 feet. Both of these are most graceful, vigorous
trees, but they must yield in stature to one at Melbury House, near
Dorchester, which has reached a height of more than 80 feet. No
tree-lover who has seen such fine examples as these can fail to regret
that more frequent use has not been made of the gingko in ornamental
planting. That is its proper function with us, for the timber is of no
more than mediocre quality.
Many fine gingkos may be seen in the Loire valley, at Geneva, and in
northern Italy; but nowhere have I been so much impressed with their
decorative qualities as in the beautiful city of Washington, where they
have been planted in a long avenue along one of the principal streets.
True, they have not yet attained a great stature--from 30 to 40 feet are
the tallest--but their verdure is most refreshing in that sun-baked
capital, and it is easy to imagine what they may become at their present
free rate of growth.
The gingko is particularly well suited for a town atmosphere. In the
most malodorous part of evil-smelling Brentford, close to a brewery and
opposite a huge gaswork, stands the wreck of a fine one. Jammed in
between grimy buildings, it has lost its top, but each spring it still
hangs out its fairy leafage over the dingy thoroughfare.
[Illustration: AVENUE OF ARAUCARIA IMBRICATA
AT CASTLE KENNEDY, WIGTOWNSHIRE]
The Araucaria
Very different in habit and appearance from the lightsome gingko is the
araucaria or puzzle monkey, but, like the former, it is a survival of
the vegetation that flourished in the carboniferous era, when it had to
compete with giant ferns, cycads, and horse-tails, and attained its
utmost development in the Jurassic landscape. Of the ten known species
of araucaria, all indigenous only in the southern hemisphere, only one
is hardy in Great Britain--_A. imbricata_--which forms forests on the
mountains of southern Chile.
This tree was first brought to England in 1795 by Archibald Menzies,
who, visiting Chile with Captain Vancouver, sowed some araucaria nuts on
board ship and brought home six live seedlings. It was not till 1844,
however, that any fresh supply of seeds reached this country, when
William Lobb, collecting for the firm of Veitch, secured a large
quantity. The quaint character of the tree, the readiness with which the
seeds germinated, and its thorough adaptation to British soil and
climate soon caused it to be widely distributed, so that at this day
there is no tree with which people are more familiar than the puzzle
monkey. At the same time, there is no tree which has suffered so much
from injudicious planting among inappropriate surroundings. It is a
creature demanding broad light and free, pure air; and I know of no more
dismal object in the world of plants than an araucaria stuck down in
front of a suburban villa, stifled with smoky deposit, retaining a
despairing grip of life, whereof the only visible sign is the green tips
of its poor blackened branches. It is treatment such as this which has
caused the araucaria to lose favour with British planters. To realise
what this tree is capable of in our hands, one has but to visit the Earl
of Stair's grounds at Castle-Kennedy and stroll down a wide grassy
avenue, two hundred yards in length, bordered on either side by
araucarias over 50 feet high (see plate at page 232).
Effective in a different fashion must be the araucaria grove at
Beauport, Sussex, which I have not seen. Here a number of these trees
were planted about fifty years ago, and allowed to grow in forest
canopy, the inner ones clearing their boles naturally. The largest of
these, measured by Dr. Henry in 1904, was 74 feet high, with a girth of
7 feet 9 inches.
[Illustration: ARAUCARIA IMBRICATA MALE FLOWER]
[Illustration: ARAUCARIA IMBRICATA FEMALE FLOWER]
Again another effect. On the west shore of Loch Fyne, united to the
mainland by a narrow neck of shingle, is Barmore Island, a grassy, rocky
pile, treeless save for a solitary araucaria which some freakish hand
has planted many years ago high on the northern slope. The impression
received from this lonely foreigner is very enduring. (Let me not be
misunderstood. I do not mean the physical impression, which would be
distinctly disagreeable; but the mental one, which is most pleasing.)
Araucaria timber is said to be like good deal, but smoother and heavier.
Like most primitive types of vegetation, the trees are of separate
sexes, though exceptionally a tree may be found bearing male and female
flowers. The male inflorescence is like a large, brown, pendant catkin,
4 or 5 inches long; the huge female cones take two years to ripen, when
they open, and each discharges 200 or 300 large seeds, 1 to 1½ inch
long. These seeds are freely produced in nearly all parts of Britain;
self-sown seedlings spring up where the undergrowth permits them; and as
an article of food the kernels are not to be despised when cooked as
chestnuts.
The araucaria is one of many South Chilian plants which relish the
climate of western Britain and Ireland. The character of climate in
these widely-separated regions is curiously similar, though from
diametrically opposite causes. In Chile abundant moisture arises from
the afflux of a cold ocean current upon a warm coast; in the British
Isles a warm ocean current flows upon the colder land.
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
LTD.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, Introduction, p. xv.
[2] _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, ii. 334.
[3] _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, ii. 328.
[4] _Sylva_, chap. iii. section 2.
[5] _The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, by H. J. Elwes and
Augustine Henry, vol. i. p. 20.
[6] Holly.
[7] Sycamore.
[8] Probably the ash.
[9] The summer of 1914 was noted for a similar abundance of seed on the
wych elm.
[10] _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, p. 1881.
[11] _British Forest Trees_, 1842, p. 208.
[12] _British Forest Trees_, p. 229.
[13] _A Traveller's Notes_, by J. H. Veitch, p. 105.
[14] Selby's _British Forest Trees_, p. 141.
[15] Since writing this I have received from a friendly correspondent a
bottle of elder-berry wine, and must confess that I conceived no desire
for a second bottle.
[16] _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, p. 34.
[17] _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, ii. 411-417.
[18] A "dole" (in charity) is merely a dialectic variant of "deal."
[19] One of these, a sycamore at Ellon, was blown down in 1873.
[20] _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, Vol. ii. p. 363.
[21] David Sharp in _Cambridge Natural History_, Vol. vi. p. 583 (1899).
[22] Professor Sargent says, "sometimes 250 feet high."
[23] _The Yew Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, p. 60, by John Lowe,
M. D., 1897.
[24] _Ibid._, p. 59.
[25] With all the trees that thou hast tended,
Thy brief concern is well-nigh ended,
Except the cypress--_that_ may wave
Its hateful symbol o'er thy grave.
(Horace, _Odes_, ii. 14.)
[26] At Monreith I have many trees thirty feet high and more, raised
from seed gathered at Fiesole, near Florence, in 1878; but young plants
raised from seed gathered at Gravosa, in Dalmatia, in 1907, were all
killed by frost, indicating that the cypress has acquired a hardier
constitution in Tuscany than those growing on the hot limestone of
Dalmatia.
[27] _Silva of California_, p. 145.
[28] Professor Jepson states that "stands of 125,000 to 150,000 feet,
board measure, to the acre, are not uncommon," _op. cit._ p. 151.
[29] It is nowhere truly wild, and is a relic of a very ancient flora.
Geological evidence shows that it is the last survivor of an ancient
family, which flourished during Secondary times, and can even be traced
back to the Primary rocks. In Mezozoic times this genus played an
important part in the arborescent flora of north-temperate regions.
Fossil remains, almost identical with the present existing species, have
been found, not only in this country and North America, but also in
Greenland.--_A Naturalist in Western China_, by E. H. Wilson, ii. 45.
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