26 LIRIODKNUKON TULIPIFKRA. 



The porio<l at which tho tuhp-troc was nrst iiifnxhiccd iiilf Eiiirlaiul is uncer- 

 tain. The honour is said to havi' \)ovn conlcrro(i on the llarl olWoirolk-, as far 

 back as IdCy'.i. it is certain that it was cuhivated hy Dr. Henry < "onipion, at 

 Fulhani, in ItiSS, at which time it was wholly unknown as a iind)er-trce. Ac- 

 cordniii; to Mdler, Mr. Darley, at lloxtoU; and Mr. Fairchild, were the first who 

 raised this tree iVoni seeds; and Ironi their nurseries it is prohahlc that the 

 numerous old trees which arc spread all over Britain were procured. The old- 

 est tree in lluijlaud, estimated at over one hundred and fifty years of age, is at 

 Fulhani i)alace. ft is a])out fifty feet high, and its trunk, at oik; foot from the 

 ground, is three I'eet in diameter. The largest tree in Britain is in .Somersetshire, 

 at llcstcrcombe, which is one hundred feet in height, with a trunk three feet iu 

 diameter, and ripens seeds every year. 



The first notice which we have of the tulip-tree on the continent, is in the 

 'Catalogue of tlic Leydcn Garden,"' pid)lishcd in 1731. From tlu; lunnber of 

 these trees existing in France, the south of Germany, and Italy, there can be 

 little doubt it spread as rapidly in those countries as it did in Britain. I^ublic 

 avenues are planted of it in Italy, and as far north as Strasburg and iMentz. It 

 stands tlie open air at Vienna, and attains a large size there ; but it will not 

 endure the climate north of Warsaw, nor Moscow, without protection. In the 

 grounds of the palace of Liicken, near Brussels, there is a tree which has a clear 

 stem three feet in diameter, with a compact globular head. When Lackeu 

 belonged to France, the palace was occupied by the Empress Josephine, who 

 brought her gardener from Paris ; and the poor man, while he was gathering 

 seeds from this tree, fell from it, and broke his neck. At Schwobber, near Han- 

 over, there is growing, in alluvial soil, near water, a tree more than one hundred 

 and twenty years old, and eighty feet in height, with a trunk two feet in diam- 

 eter, and an ambitus of thirty feet. In Italy, the tulip-tree attains a height of 

 seventy or eighty feet, flowers freely, and ripens seeds every year. 



The elder Michaux measured a tulip-tree, three and a half miles from Louis- 

 ville, Kentucky, which was twenty-two feet and a half in circumference five feet 

 from the ground, and from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty 

 feet in height. In 1842, there was felled from the estate of Mr. John Lewis, in 

 Llangollan, Kentucky, a tulip-tree, eight feet in diameter, near the ground, and 

 five feet in diameter seventy-five feet above. The trunk was perfectly straight 

 and sound, and was sawed into boards of common lengths. 



At Green Point, Bushwick, near New York, on the estate of Mr. N. Bliss, 

 there is a tulip-tree which has a circumference of twenty-one feet at three feet 

 above the ground, and a height of seventy feet. 



In 1807, there existed a tulip-tree, in Hamilton, Adams, county, Pennsylvania, 

 noticed by John Pearson, in a communication to Dr. James Mease, in the 

 " Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society for promoting Agriculture," for that year, 

 which had a circumference of thirty-six feet, with a trunk thirty or forty feet to 

 the forks, a large head, and, to all appearances, perfectly sound. In the same 

 work, he mentions another tree as growing near the Virginia head of the river 

 Roanoke, which was thirty-nine feet in circumference four feet from the ground, 

 apparently sound, and about forty feet to the forks. 



Soil and SituatioJi. The Liriodendron tulipifera, in its natural habitat, delights 

 only in deep, loamy, and extremely fertile soils, such as are found in the rich 

 bottoms, lying along the rivers, and on the borders of the great swamps which 

 are enclosed in the forests. Like almost all other trees, however, it will grow on 

 soils of different qualities, and have its timber and other properties affected by the 

 circumstances in which it is placed. But, according to M. Du Hamel, it neither 

 thrives in France on a dry, arid, gravelly soil, nor on one with a subsoil of clay, 

 or marl. The most rapid-growing young tulip-trees in England, it is said, were 



