42 TILIA EUEOP^EA 
no better provided with nurseries for a tree so choice, and so universally accept- 
able. We send, commonly, for this tree, into Flanders and Holland, while our 
woods do, in some places, spontaneously produce them." The linden has long 
been a favorite tree for avenues and public walks, in some of the principal towns 
of France, Holland, and Germany, one of the most celebrated of which is in 
Berlin, called Die Linden Strasse. It also forms avenues to country-seats, 
on the continent of Europe, in Britain, and in America. "The French," 
says Du Hamel, " growing tired of the horse-chesnut for avenues, adopted the 
lime for that purpose, in the time of Louis XIV. ; and, accordingly, the ap- 
proaches to the residences of the French, as well as the English gentry of that 
date, are bordered with lime trees;" and Fenelon, "in conformity to this taste, 
decorates with 'flowering lime-trees,' his enchanted isle of Calypso." 
The introduction of the European linden into America, no doubt, took place 
soon after its settlement. In general, as it is but a short-lived tree, in this coun- 
try, in consequence of the ravages of insects, but few specimens are to be found 
of advanced age and size, which renders it difficult to determine the precise 
period at which it was brought from Europe. There exists, at present, how- 
ever, a noble and venerable tree of this species, in Cambridge, Massachusetts 
which is reputed to be above two hundred years old, with a trunk measuring 
more than eight feet in circumference at three feet from the ground. Its trunk is 
pierced and grooved with numerous holes by the Saperda vestita; several of its 
large branches, and a portion of its top have fallen, apparently in consequence 
of the depredations of these insects, and in a few years more, it will probably 
moulder to earth. 
The largest and the most remarkable linden in Europe, and probably in the 
world, is at Neustadt, in Wiirtemberg, so famous for its size, that even the city itself 
takes its name from it, being called by the Germans, Neustadt an der Linde ; 
that is, Newtown by the Great Linden-tree. This monstrosity of unknown 
antiquity, is nearly one hundred feet in height, and eighteen feet in diameter near 
the ground. Its trunk rises fifteen feet before it begins to ramify. The branches 
extend to nearly one hundred feet on each side of the trunk, and are supported 
by one hundred and eight pillars of wood and stone. There is a place of enter- 
tainment formed in the head of the tree, which may be ascended by a flight of 
steps. In the hollows of the branches, earth has been placed, and gooseberry 
bushes planted, the fruit of which is sold to visiters. 
At Fribourg, in the public square, there is a large lime-tree, the branches of 
which are supported by pieces of timber. This tree was planted on the day 
that the victory was proclaimed of the Swiss over the Duke of Burgundy, 
Charles the Bold, in 1476; and it is a monument admirably accordant with the 
then feebleness of the Swiss republics, and the extreme simplicity of their man- 
ners, it being the custom in the middle ages, during the struggles of the Swiss 
and Flemish people to recover their liberty, to plant a lime-tree on the field of 
every battle that they gained over their oppressors. In 1833, the trunk of this 
tree measured about fourteen feet in circumference. In the village of Villars-en- 
Morig, near Fribourg, there is a large lime-tree, which existed there long before 
the battle of Morat, (which the tree of Fribourg commemorates,) and which 
now is of extraordinary dimensions. According to De Candolle, in 1831, it was 
seventy feet high, and thirty-six feet in circumference at four feet from the 
ground, where it divided into large and perfectly sound branches. It is esti- 
mated as being nearly one thousand years of age. 
At Knowle, south of London, there is an immense lime-tree, which spreads 
over nearly a quarter of an acre of ground. What is very remarkable, the 
branches of this tree, many years ago, rested their extremities on the soil, rooted 
into it, and sent up a circle of young shoots, which surrounded the parent tree. 
? 
