134 T^he Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



accessible, would be clean felling, followed by replanting as soon as possible, in the 

 same manner as is generally adopted in the south of Japan. 



I could not learn the exact range of Cryptomeria as a wild tree,^ but in the 

 north, where the winter is long and hard, and the snow lies deep for months, it 

 prefers the shady aspect, though it does not attain the same gigantic proportions as 

 it does farther south. 



Nikko is approached by a magnificent avenue of Cryptomerias on both sides of 

 the road, 20 miles long, known more or less imperfectly by every visitor to that place, 

 but which can only be properly appreciated by going some way east of Imaichi 

 station, to the point where the trees in good soil attain their greatest dimensions. I 

 took a photographer here specially to take the picture reproduced, and measured the 

 finest trees I could find, of which the tallest was about 145 feet high, and the average 

 1 10 to 120 feet, with a girth of 12 to 20 feet on the better soils. Many of the trees 

 have been planted so close together that they have now grown into one tree. The 

 one which I figure (Plate 40) is composed of six stems, which measure 21 feet in 

 greatest diameter, and about 60 in girth. Cf. Sargent, Forest Flora of Japan, p. 75. 



The age of these trees, of which many have been blown down by recent gales 

 and some felled, is, as near as I could count the rings of wood, 260 to 270 years, of 

 which over 200 is red wood. The bark is not over \x.o\ inch thick, and though some 

 of the trees were beginning to decay at the heart, others were quite sound. The soil 

 is generally a rich black humus overlying a yellow tufaceous volcanic gravel, and the 

 influence of bad soil on the trees is seen very clearly at a point about three miles 

 east of Imaichi, where the road crosses a low ridge of dry and sandy soil, and where 

 they are not more than 80 to 90 feet high by 6 to 8 feet girth. 



At the celebrated temples of Nikko there are larger trees than any that I saw in 

 the avenue. The best shown in Plate 41 is about 150 feet high by 23 feet in girth, 

 but I could not measure the height exactly on account of its position. They are said to 

 be about 300 years old, being probably older than those in the avenue, and seem mostly 

 in perfect health on a slope facing south where the soil is evidently deep and good. 



But these magnificent trees are quite eclipsed by those which I saw later at the 

 celebrated monastery town of Koyasan, in the province of Kishu, not nearly so well 

 known to European tourists as it should be. The magnificent cemetery at this place 

 is over a mile long, and planted as an irregular avenue with many lateral annexes 

 each of which was in the past the private burying ground of great families with 

 Cryptomeria trees which are said to be 400 years old, and which, I believe, surpass in 

 grandeur any other trees planted by man in the world. They grow at an elevation of 

 about 2800 feet, in a climate which is much milder, and gives evidence of a much 

 heavier rainfall than that at Nikko ; for many of the trees had shrubs growing on 

 them as epiphytes on their trunks. In one case a tree of Cupressus obtusa has its 

 stem, 6 to 8 inches thick, completely embedded in the trunk of a sound and 



' In Forestry of Japan, p. 1 8, it is only said that splendid natural pure woods of it occur in the Nagakizawa State 

 forests in Akita, and in Yakujima in the island of Kyushu, which I had not time to visit, but whether there is any notable 

 difference between the trees in these distinct areas, separated by nearly ten degrees of latitude, is not stated, so far as I can find. 

 According to Shirasawa (loc. (it.) fossil Cryptomeria trees of great dimensions have been found in nearly all parts of 

 Japan 



