FOR TIMBER PURPOSES. 215 



this situation Mr Foulis complains of even these naturalised 

 specimens being liable to suffer rather severely in their foliage 

 from the spring frosts of March and April ; but he invariably 

 finds them '• throw it off," and does not record a single instance 

 of this tendency haviug proved fatal to the Taxodium. Again 

 at Hopetoun, Linlithgowshire, it has proved quite hardy in 

 ordinary loamy soil, with clay and gravel subsoil, and grows 

 fully as rapidly as the Wellingtonia gigantca. The largest 

 specimen there is now about t\venty years old, is 30 feet in 

 height, and girths, at 6 feet from the ground, 3 feet 3 inches this 

 season. At Castle-Kennedy, Wigtownshire, this conifer does not 

 appear to be in so much favour with the intelligent and enthu- 

 siastic and deservedly successful grower, Mr Fowler, as many 

 other of the splendid specimens which abound in this locality, 

 not inaptly styled tiie ''Devonshire of Scotland!' He reports 

 his tallest plant about 25 feet high, 4 feet 8 inches in girth at 1 

 foot from the ground, and 4 feet 6 inches at 3 feet up ; but the 

 species, he adds, although it lives, does not thrive freely, owing 

 to the subsoil being open and porous, and consequently too dry 

 for the vigorous development of the young wood. In this situa- 

 tion, also, the foliage acquires a rusty brown hue, which it 

 retains for a long time, greatly marring its evergreen character- 

 istics. At Dropmore, Maidenhead, Berks, the oldest Taxodium 

 sempervirens, and which was planted in 1845, has now (in 1876) 

 attained a height of 53 feet, with a girth at 1 foot from the 

 ground, of 6 feet 9 inches, and at 3 feet up, of 6 feet 7 inches. 

 Had this plant not been so unfortunate as to have twice lost its 

 leading shoot, it would now have been much taller. On both 

 occasions it sustained a check of fully three feet. The soil is 

 naturally sterile and gravelly ; but the plant is placed in a 

 mound made up with soil from the roadsides over the natural soil, 

 which is not more than 1 foot deep, and rests upon red gravel. 



Other instances miQ,ht be adduced to show that the Taxodium 

 sempervirens is practically hardy in the climate of the British 

 Isles, and will succeed well in almost all soils ; but enough has 

 been already said on these points ; and it is perhaps only neces- 

 sary to add, under this .section of the report, that in introducing 

 the Taxodium to any new locality, care should be taken not to 

 plant the young trees in rich loam, as they are thereby induced 

 to make large and rapid growth, and in this climate such shoots, 

 before their wood is poperly ri])ened, are very liable to be 

 damaged by frost. Until acclimatised and accustomed to the 

 site, young plants of this, as of many other of the rapiilly grow- 

 ing conifers, are always most successfully reared for a few years 

 after their introduction, by simply growing them, without any 

 adventitious or stimulating aid, in the natural soil of the ])osition 

 in which they are ]danted. Another precaution to be observed 

 in the planting uf fast growing pines, such as the 2\ixodium scm- 



