1040 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



At Barton, Bury St. Edmunds, there is a tree planted in 1825, which is 57 ft. 

 by 5 ft. 1 in. At Linton Park, Kent, a tree which was the largest reported to the 

 Conifer Conference in 1891, when it measured 68 ft., when I saw it in 1903 was 

 only 70 ft. by 4 ft. 6 in., and did not look at all healthy. 



At Woburn there is a very healthy specimen, branched to the ground, which 

 in 1903 measured 53 ft. by 8 ft. 6 in. At Dropmore a tree said by Loudon to 

 have been about 40 ft. high is now about 60 ft. At Osberton Hall, Notts, there is 

 an old tree 50 ft. by 6 ft. 2 in. 



At Essendon Place, Herts, Mr. Clinton-Baker in 1907 measured a specimen 

 60 ft. by 5 ft. 4 in. At Bayfordbury a tree planted in 1840, is now 41 ft. by 5^ ft. 



In Scotland this tree does not seem to have been much planted at an early 

 date, and I have heard of no trees of great age ; but it seems to have been a great 

 favourite with the late Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, and a great number 

 of thriving specimens are growing at Balmoral, where the soil and climate seem to 

 suit it remarkably well, and where it ripens good seed. There is an avenue 12 yards 

 wide from the stables to the back door of the castle, which Mr. Michie believes to be 

 fifty years old, and the trees, planted 6 yards apart, averaged in 1904, 38 to 40 ft. high 

 by 3 to 4 ft. in girth. A much larger tree grows on the north side of the castle, and a 

 number of the trees planted by royal and distinguished visitors in memory of their 

 visits are of this species. This seems to show what I have not noticed in England, 

 that a cold climate and dry sandy soil are, as might be expected, favourable to the 

 health of this tree. 



At Abercairney, in Perthshire, Henry measured a tree 55 ft. high by 5 ft. 7 in. 

 in girth ; and Hunter records one at Cultoquhey near Crieff, planted out from a pot 

 in 1826, which in 1883 was 40 ft. by 6\ ft. 



In Ireland the damper climate does not seem to suit it, as we have not seen any 

 trees of considerable size. 



A tree planted in the Park of Bogstad near Christiania, which Schiibeler 

 thought to be about 100 years old, and which he says was in 1885, 60 ft. high, was, 

 when I measured it in 1903, about 85 ft. high with a trunk 10 ft. in girth, and 

 divided at about 30 ft. into four stems. It is the largest cultivated tree that I have 

 seen anywhere, and shows that it might prove a valuable forest tree in Norway. 



There is in the Botanical Garden at Christiania a tree believed to be of the 

 Siberian variety which looks healthier, and is growing faster, than the European 

 form. When I saw it in 1903 it was growing at the rate of about a foot per annum, 

 and according to Schiibeler is now about forty-one years old. This variety was 

 growing healthily but slowly at the forest nursery at Storgaard in the upper part of 

 Saltdalen, latitude 67 . 



Timber 



The wood of this tree is almost unknown in England except in the form of 

 carvings and toys, for which it is preferred in its native country to that of any other 

 conifer, on account of its softness, density, and the absence of hard rings. It is, 

 however, difficult to procure in large sizes without knots ; and among a large 



