PLANTING. 89 



length, and at the stool seventeen feet in diameter. The weight was 

 estimated at ninety-seven tons. 



The chestnut (Castanea vesca) may dispute the order of precedence 

 with the elm, but that it is less hardy, and requires a milder climate, and 

 more genial soil. On the banks of the Tamar, in Cornwall, there are 

 some of the finest specimens of this tree. A very remarkable tree of this 

 kind in England is at Tortworth, in Gloucestershire. A figure of it 

 is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1766, p. 321. The age of this 

 tree is supposed to be upwards of one thousand years. In 1791 it mea- 

 sured forty-four feet four inches in circumference. The soil in which it 

 grows is described as being a soft loamy clay. 



The finest tree on record of the beech appears to be that in Woburn 

 Park, situated on a rising ground south of the Abbey, in a fine grove of 

 that species of tree. The height of the tree at this period is one hundred 

 feet. It has a clear and nearly equally cylindrical stern of the height of 

 fifty feet, and the top, which is of the most graceful proportion in every 

 respect, occupies fifty feet in height. The solid contents are four hun- 

 dred feet. The soil in which this remarkable tree grows has already 

 been described at p. 48. 



Of the larch (Pinus larix), the finest specimens have been produced in 

 the extensive woods of the Duke of Athol, at Dunkeld, in Perthshire. 

 One tree of fifty years of age measured eighty-six feet and a half in height, 

 and contained eighty-two feet of solid wood. There are instances of the 

 larch attaining to upwards of one hundred feet in height, and of twelve 

 feet in circumference. 



The specimens of the silver fir (Pinus picea) at Blair Adam before 

 mentioned are remarkable for size and symmetry ; but the finest specimen, 

 perhaps, in Britain grows in Woburn Park. The height of this tree is 

 one hundred and ten feet, and the circumference at four feet from the 

 ground, ten feet six inches ; the solid contents or cubic feet of timber 

 contained in it being three hundred and seventy-five feet. The age of the 

 tree is about one hundred and ten years, and the average increase of 

 height has, therefore, been exactly one foot every year, and the periodical 

 produce of timber upwards of three, or nearly three and a half, cubic feet 

 per annum. This appears to be the largest periodical increase of timber, 

 continued for so many years, that is recorded. 



Three black Italian poplars, planted by the present Duke of Bedford 

 in 1806, are now of twenty-three years growth, and measure as follows: 



No. 1. Height . . . 31 



Circumference or girth . 6 7 



The stem at fifteen feet -| girt, 19f in. 



Ditto at sixteen feet above , 1'3-J- in. 



No. 2. Lost its top in a blast in 1828. 



60 feet. 



Measures Height . 23 1 . f 



One-fourth girt . . 16| J 



No. 3. Height . . . 26 \ . r 



One-fourth girt . . 16 J 



These trees were planted on a light soil, but well prepared by trenching. 



The products of plantations have already been incidentally mentioned. 

 The terms used by practical men to denote these products are not the 

 same in all places, but frequently the same term is used in different coun- 

 ties to mean different products, and sometimes a term used in one place is 

 totally unknown in another. As in legal instruments, relative to the 

 transfer or holding of woodlands, the misunderstanding of these terms has 



