Exact Meas2irement of Trees. 169 



than its neighbour. This was traced in the end of July 

 hist to its foliage having sustained serious damage from 

 insects. 



2. The hawthorn (16) alone greatly surpassed in 1880 

 the growth of 1879, and indeed may be said to have come 

 up even to that of 1878, the increments being, in the order 

 of the three years, 0-8, 0*1, and 0"75. The tree is a very 

 fine pendulous Mary-Thorn, which last year, as usual, put 

 out its buds and expanded its leaves very early, and was 

 covered with dense vigorous foliage. But, though I never 

 before observed it otherwise than richly covered in due 

 season from top to bottom with flower, last year its blossom 

 was confined entirely to a few twigs near the top, facing 

 south-west, and constituting scarcely a twentieth part of 

 the tree. Everywhere hawthorn flower was extremely 

 poor. 



3. Of the oak tribe the Hungary oak shows the best 

 product of wood in 1880. It increased its girth by nearly an 

 inch and a half. I may add that two younger plants of 13J 

 and 16| inches in girth of trunk, measured for the first time 

 last year, were richly leaved, and added each I'lO inch to 

 their girth. This beautiful species having been thus 

 proved to defy the most ungenial of our summers, and 

 a winter of unexampled harshness, it well deserves more 

 attention than it has yet received as a quick-growing orna- 

 mental tree. 



4. Two Douglas pines, a Corsican pine, two Araucarias, 

 a Pinus excelsa, a Cedar of the Atlas, four Sequoias, and a 

 Picea Lowei, notwithstanding that its top shoot had been 

 broken ofi", have shown little or no backwardness in 1880. 

 But four specimens of our indigenous Scotch fir seem to 

 have made no progress whatever. It has been stated in 

 the public news that this species has sufi'ered severely 

 in some parts of the north of Scotland. As for the four 

 now referred to, the first, the only Scotch fir in the 

 Botanic G-arden, has not advanced for three years past at 

 least ; the last two in the table, in the east clump of the 

 Arboretum, are also shabby trees, ill-branched, limited in 

 spread, and thin in foliage ; but the other in the Arboretum 

 (11) was in 1878 a rather handsome tree, which in that 

 year measured 7 feet 10 inches in girth at 5 feet from the 



