242 The Trees of Great Britain and Jreland 



Fountains Abbey, and close to two very tall spruce. This, though hard to measure 

 correctly owing to its crowded position, which makes a satisfactory illustration 

 impossible, is over 80 feet high and 1 1 feet in girth, but is forked at about 7 feet 

 from the ground. 



The next best is at Strathfieldsaye, a very spreading tree in damp soil, also 

 forking near the ground. The two stems measure 9 feet 6 inches and 8 feet 3 inches, 

 and the height in 1903 was about 75 feet, the branches weeping to the ground on all 

 sides { Plate 71). At Althorp there is a fine old specimen on the lawn, of a more upright 

 type, which in 1903 was 63 feet by 8 feet 10 inches. At Walcot, in Shropshire, the 

 seat of the Earl of Powis, is one of the best grown trees I have seen, with a bole 

 about 25 feet high, and measuring 60 feet by 8 feet 8 inches. At Mr. Heelas' 

 residence, near Reading, part of the old White Knights estate, is a tree, probably 

 planted 150 years ago, which Henry in 1904 found to be 67 feet by 8 feet. At 

 Arley Castle there is a fine tree dividing into three stems, of which the largest is 

 6 feet 7 inches in girth and nearly 70 feet high. 



At Hardwick, Bury St. Edmunds, there is a tree, forked at 30 feet up, 60 feet 

 by 5 feet 10 inches. At Beauport, Sussex, a tree measured in 1904, 65 feet by ,7 feet. 

 At Osberton, Notts, the seat of Mr. F. Savile Foljambe, there is a remarkably 

 spreading old tree about 42 feet high, and dividing near the ground into three stems, 

 each about 6 feet in girth. It has some layered branches which are over 20 feet 

 high, and the total circumference is no less than 80 paces. Bunbury, Arboretum 

 Notes, p. 1 40, mentions as the largest hemlock in the country one growing at Bowood, 

 Wiltshire, the seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne, which, however, cannot now be 

 found. 



In Scotland, where the tree should succeed well, I have seen none of great size, 

 except the tree at Dunkeld, which is growing in a thick wood of conifers mixed with 

 beech on rocky ground, close to the Hermitage bridge. This is mentioned by 

 Hunter as being 80 feet high by 10 feet in girth. Mr. D. Keir twenty years later 

 made it 85 feet by 1 1 feet, and when he showed it to me in 1 906 I found that, though 

 the top is not easy to see, it is probably as much as 90 feet, and looks as if it would 

 grow taller. It divides at about 12 feet into several stems, and is believed to be 

 140 to 150 years old. 



At Dalkeith there was in 1891 a tree 42 feet high by 10 feet 6 inches in girth ; 

 and at Buchanan Castle, Stirlingshire, the seat of the Duke of Montrose, one 

 measuring 45 feet by 6 feet 10 inches.^ 



In Ireland the largest known to us is one at Carton, the seat of the Duke of 

 Leinster, which in 1903 was 45 feet by 6^ feet. 



Timber 



Opinions as to the value of this wood differ a good deal, and I have no personal 

 experience in the matter. Sargent says that it is light, soft, not strong, brittle, 

 coarse, crooked-grained, difficult to work, liable to wind-shake and splinter, and not 



* Journ. R. Hort. So<. xiv, 520, 544 (1892). 



