52 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



At the Piltdown Nurseries in Sussex there are many fine specimens,' one of 

 which is said to have been 50 feet by 9 J feet in girth in 1854. Messrs. Dennett and 

 Sons, the present tenants of this nursery, inform me that they believe this is one of 

 the oldest trees in the country, and that in April 1903 it was about 70 feet high 

 (perhaps more), with a girth of 7 feet at 5 feet, and 1 1 feet close to the ground. But a 

 correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle'^ says that in 1891 it was 65 feet by lo^ feet 

 at 4 feet, and that 3^^ bushels of seed were collected in this nursery in 1889, which 

 produced hardier plants than imported seed. He also states that one of the trees 

 which was cut down in 1880 threw up in 1884 a sucker from the roots, which grew 

 15 feet high in five years, and showed in 1891 no signs of branching out in any way.* 

 He also states that it does not matter when Araucarias are pruned, as they grow 

 steadily all the year. The soil at Piltdown is a deep loam with gravel subsoil, and 

 though, as it is here stated, it is generally thought that a dry, well-drained subsoil is 

 essential to the success of this tree, yet I have seen in the garden of Foss bridge 

 Inn in the Cotswold Hills, in a low damp situation close to the banks of the 

 Coin, two Araucarias, male and female, about 40 feet high, which produced ripe seed 

 in 1903, from which Mr. Holyoake, gardener to the Earl of Eldon of Stowell Park, 

 has raised plants. 



At Bicton, Devonshire, the seat of the Honourable Mark Rolle, there is a fine 

 avenue of Araucarias, which has been often mentioned in print ; but the trees in it 

 do not appear to be increasing in height so fast as the good soil and climate would 

 lead one to expect. When I saw them in September 1902 the best which I measured 

 was about 50 feet high by 8 feet 9 inches in girth. Ripe seeds were falling at the 

 time, from which seedlings were raised. 



There are also fine trees at Castlehill, North Devon, the seat of the Earl 

 Fortescue, which have produced seed for many years past. 



At Tortworth Court, Gloucestershire, the seat of the Earl of Ducie, who has 

 one of the best collections of trees in England, and to whom I am indebted for very 

 much assistance and advice in this work, there arevmany large Araucarias,* the best 

 of which I found to be 53 feet by 7 feet 6 inches in 1904. It is producing many 

 young shoots among the dying branches of the trunk. 



In Scotland the Araucaria grows well not only in the south-west where, at 

 Castle Kennedy, the seat of the Earl of Stair, there is a fine avenue, 200 yards 

 long, in which the largest tree is 50 feet by 6 feet 2 inches in girth, and from 

 which self-sown seedlings have sprung, but also in Perthshire, where there are 

 fair-sized trees, one of which on the banks of the Tay in the grounds of the Duke 

 of Athole at Dunkeld, I found in 1904 to be 50 feet high, but only 3 feet 11 in 

 girth. It grows well at Gordon Castle exposed to the full force of the north-east 

 wind, and has ripened seeds as far north as Inverness.* But some of the trees 

 recorded in Perthshire and other places in Scotland have been killed during severe 

 frosts, and as a rule the growth is not so rapid as in the south of England. Two 



' Card. Chron. 1885, xxiii. 342. ' Ibid. 1891, i. 342. 



' Sir Herbert Maxwell informs me that he saw at Cairnsmore an old trunk of Araucaria which had died twenty years ago, 

 still standing, with a young growth 3 feet high from the stool. 



* Cf. Card. Chron. 1890, ii. 633. ' Ibid. 1868, p. 464 ; 1872, p. 1323 ; 1894, xvi. 603. 



