370 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART Ills 
gardening it is well adapted, from the patience with which it bears the knife 
or the shears. In some of the public gardens of recreation on the Continent, 
and especially in those in the neighbourhood of Paris and Amsterdam, there 
are very imposing colonnades, arcades, walls, pyramids, and other architec- 
tural-looking masses, formed of this tree. 
Soil and Situation. -A deep and rather light soil is recommended for the 
lime tree by Du Hamel (Traité des Arbres); but the largest trees are gene- 
rally found in a good loamy soil. In Lithuania, where the tree is more 
abundant, and of a larger size, than it is either in Russia or Poland, the soil, 
as we particularly remarked about Kowno, when in that country in 1813, is 
rather a clayey loam than a sandy one. This agrees with an observation of 
Du Hamel, in another of his works: (Zxploitation des Bois), that the lime 
tree gets to a prodigious size in an argillaceous soil inclining somewhat to 
sand, and rather moist. In dry situations, the tree never attains a large size, 
and it loses its leaves earlier than any other tree. Being a tree of the plains, 
rather than of the mountains, it does not appear suitable for exposed sur- 
faces: but it requires a pure air rather than otherwise; for, though it is found 
in towns on the Continent, and sparingly so’ in Britain, the smoke of mineral 
coal seems more injurious to it than it is to the platanus, the elm, or some 
other trees. 
Propagation and Culture. It is seldom propagated otherwise than by layers, 
which are made, in the nurseries, in autumn and winter, and which become 
rooted, so as to admit of being taken off, ma year. The tree, in Britain at 
least, appears seldom to ripen its seeds ; but Evelyn states that he received 
many of these from Holland, and that plants may be raised from them ; 
though, he says, with better success from suckers. Du Hamel says that the 
lime tree may be raised from seeds, which ought to be sown immediately 
after being gathered; because, if they are preserved dry till the following 
spring, they will often not come up till the second year. If, however, the 
seeds are mixed with sand, or with soil, not too dry, and kept in that state till 
the following spring, they will generaliy come up the first year. Owing to 
the slowness of the growth of plants raised from seeds, Du Hamel states, 
the French gardeners, when they want a supply of young lime trees, cut 
over an old one close by thé surface of the ground, which soon sends up a 
great number of shoots: among these they throw in a quantity of soil, which 
they allow to remain one, or two, or three years; after which they find the 
shoots well rooted, and of a sufficient height and strength to be planted at 
once where they are finally to remain. This mode is still practised in France 
and Belgium, both with the lime and the elm. (See Agrémens de la Cam- 
pagne, liv.ii.) We have seen the plants, or shoots, 15 ft. or 20 ft. high, 
with very few roots when they were first taken off: but all the branches 
being cut off close to the stems, and the stems shortened to 6ft. or 7 ft., 
and the roots also pruned, they are planted, and seldom fail to grow; 
all the young shoots produced the first season after planting being re- 
moved, except one to serve as a leader. The lime tree bears trans- 
planting when of a considerable size; but, when it is grown in the nurseries 
for this purpose, it ought always to be taken up and replanted every two 
or three years. A tree which has stood some years without being removed 
should always have the roots cut round, at 3 ft. or 4ft. from the stem, 
a year before removal, for the purpose of stunting the growth, both of the 
head and roots, and of forming smaller roots and fibres. Evelyn mentions 
some very large lime trees which the prince elector took out of his forests 
at Heidelberg, to a steep hill “exceedingly exposed to the heat of the sun, 
and that in the heat of summer. They grow behind that strong tower on the 
south-west and most torrid part of the eminence, being a dry, reddish, 
barren earth ; yet do they prosper rarely well: but the heads were cut ‘off, 
and the pits into which they were transplanted were (by the industry and di- 
rection of Monsieur De Son, a Frenchman, and an admirable mechanic, who 
himself related it to me) filled with a composition of earth and cow-dung, 
