Acer 647 



wished to establish a plantation by sowing, and they were the only species of 

 which the plants showed up well in the lines the first summer. As they 

 were much too thick in the rows, about 10,000 were transplanted the following 

 winter, when 4 to 8 inches high, and these grew so fast in the nursery that in two 

 years more I had trees 4 to 6 feet high, whilst those which were left where they 

 were sown, after four years' growth had made very little progress, few exceeding 

 12 to li inches in height, and many remaining so stunted that they could hardly 

 be recognised among the grass. 



Though rabbits will not eat it so readily as beech or ash, yet where they 

 are found, the sycamore is not safe from their attacks until it is a foot or more in 

 diameter ; after which I have not seen them touch it ; and in a park, deer, however 

 hungry, do not bark this tree, though they will peel the branches when cut. It 

 shoots freely from the stool when treated as coppice wood, and on dry soil produces 

 a much greater bulk of poles than ash or lime will do, but in this form is not so 

 valuable as ash or oak, because the poles are neither strong nor durable, and are 

 not used for hurdle-making. 



Remarkable Trees 



Among the many large sycamores which I have measured, it is hard to say 

 which is the finest, but in England I think the palm must be awarded to a tree 

 near the Marquess of Ripon's house at Studley Royal, Yorkshire. This tree is about 

 104 feet high, by 17^ feet in girth. It has a very large burr close to the ground, 

 where it is 29^^ feet round, and a clear bole of about 30 feet. 



An almost equally fine tree, growing in front of the Earl of Darnley's house at 

 Cobham Hall, Kent, was figured by Strutt, plate xxx. He gave its height as 94 

 feet, its girth at the ground 27 feet, and its cubic contents 450 feet. When I 

 measured it in 1905, I found that it was about 105 feet by 17 feet 9 inches at 5 feet 

 up, and still quite healthy. At Penshurst, in the same county, there is a fine tree 

 104 feet by 13 feet 10 inches. 



The tree figured in Plate 179 grows on my own lawn, constantly in sight as 

 I write, and though not quite so large as some others, is still a beautifully-shaped 

 tree, 100 feet by 15 feet. Its top, I grieve to say, has been dying back for some 

 years. At Lypiatt Park, near Stroud, there is a fine tree close below the house, of 

 which Sir John Dorington has sent me a photograph. It measures about 90 feet 

 by 18 feet, dividing near the base into three main stems. 



At Essendon Place, Herts, Mr. H. Clinton Baker measured a tree in 1906 

 as 94 feet high by 9 feet 9 inches in girth. At Fawley Court, near Henley, close 

 to the Thames, in a dense plantation, a tree, estimated by Henry in 1907 to be 

 100 feet or more in height, was 12 feet 8 inches in girth. At Shiplake House, also 

 near Henley, there is a widespreading tree, 85 feet high and 10 feet 3 inches 

 in girth. 



At Lowther Castle, Westmoreland, the seat of the Earl of Lonsdale, there 

 is an immense tree no less than 19 feet 9 inches in girth, but not so tall as, 



