FORESTRY 



period no other place in England where so much attention was paid to 

 arboriculture. Evelyn in his diary, under date 11 October, 1681, 

 writes : ' I went to Fulham to visit the Bishop of London in whose 

 garden I saw the Sedum arborescent in flower, which was exceedingly 

 beautiful.' 110 Compton took infinite pains to obtain hardy exotic trees 

 from North America ; he was the first to introduce American maples, 

 acacias, magnolias, hickories, and other trees into English gardens and 

 plantations. Ray, the distinguished naturalist, visited the Fulham 

 grounds in 1687, and set forth a long Latin list of tulip trees and other 

 rarities which were then flourishing. 111 



Compton's successor, Bishop Robinson (171323), did not share 

 his tastes, and to his disgrace permitted his gardener to make merchandise 

 of whatever trees and shrubs would bear transplanting. 118 Fortunately, 

 however, many of the earlier planted trees were far too well rooted to be 

 removed. In 1751 that great botanist, Sir William Watson, visited 

 Fulham, and reported to the Royal Society on the remnants of Bishop 

 Compton's work. A catalogue of the exotic trees then remaining was 

 drawn up, which included the silver fir, the Norway maple, the cedar 

 of Lebanon, the Virginia cedar, the red horse-chestnut, the Virginia 

 sumach, the arbutus, and a variety of flowering maples and evergreen 

 oaks ; many of them were considered to be the largest of their kind then 

 growing in Europe. 113 



Daniel Lysons made another careful survey of the trees in the 

 Fulham grounds in 1793, when he found eleven trees that had been 

 planted by Bishop Compton still flourishing. An ash-leaf maple, planted 

 in 1688, to the west of the house, had a girth of 6ft. 4 in., and a height 

 of 45 ft. ; the black walnut tree on the east lawn, * a most magnificent 

 tree,' had a girth of 1 1 ft. 2 in., and a height of 70 ft. ; the cluster pine, 

 in the nuns' walk, loft, girth, and Soft, height ; and the cork tree on 

 the south lawn, roft. loin, girth, and 45 ft. height. The other trees 

 were two three-thorned acacias, an ilex, a white oak, a scarlet-flowered 

 maple, an upright cypress, and a Virginia red cedar. Lysons also noted 

 a cedar planted in 1683, and an avenue of limes near the porter's lodge, 

 which were probably planted by Compton about i688. 114 



Most of the veterans mentioned in the lists of Watson and Lysons 

 have disappeared. The white oak perished in a gale in 1877 ; and a 

 large part of the black walnut was blown down in 1881. Bishops 

 Blomfield, Tait, and Jackson all took much interest in the grounds, and 

 planted a variety of exotic trees. In Mr. Feret's pages there is a full 

 account of the more recent plantings, and of the present condition of the 

 older and larger trees. The trees with the greatest girth at a height of 

 3ft. from the ground are a common elm, 19 ft. 8 in. ; a black walnut, 

 1 7 ft. 3 in. ; a plane tree, i6ft. loin. ; and a beech, 13 ft. loin. All 

 that now exists of the trees of Compton's planting appear to be the 



10 Evelyn, Diary and Corresp. ii, 159. " Ray, Historia Plantarum, ii, 1798. 



" Lysons, Environs of Land, ii, 349. " s Philosophical Trans, xlvii, 24.1. 



114 Lysons, Environs of Land, ii, 351-2. 



245 



