1686 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



surface of the soil. Du Harnel obtained abundance of plants by strewing soil 

 over the surface of the ground under a seed-bearing alder tree in autumn, after 

 the seed had dropped. When the seed is sown in autumn, the plants will 

 come up the following spring ; and, when it is sown in spring, they will gene- 

 rally come up in the course of five or six weeks after sowing. Spring sowings 

 should be made much thicker than autumnal sowings ; because many of the 

 seeds, unless they have been very carefully excluded from the air, lose their 

 vital power during winter. The plants from spring-sown seeds will attain the 

 height of from Sin. to Gin. the first summer. The second year they will be 

 double or treble that height j and in three or four years, if properly treated, they 

 will be 5 ft. or 6 ft. high. The nursery culture and after-management in 

 plantations have nothing peculiar in them ; except that, when full-grown 

 trees are to be cut down, it is advisable to disbark them a year before ; a 

 practice as old as the time of Evelyn. When alders are cut down as coppice- 

 wood, in spring, when the sap is in motion, care should be taken that the cuts 

 are not made later than March; and that they are in a sloping direction upwards. 

 If, at this season, the cuts are made downwards, the section which remains 

 on the stool will be so far fractured as, by the exudation of the sap, and the 

 admission of the weather, no longer to throw up vigorous shoots, and it will 

 decay in a few years. 



Accidents, Insects, and Diseases. The alder is liable to few accidents from 

 high winds : but the Adimonia alni Fab. deposits its eggs on the young buds ; 

 and the larvae are frequently so abundant, as to consume the leaves almost 

 entirely. There is also a small worm, the caterpillar of some coleopterous 

 insect, which penetrates through the bark into the wood, and ultimately 

 destroys the trees. (Diet, des Eaux, &c.) This is probably the Callidium 

 alni Fab., one of the longicorn beetles. A small species of jumping weevil 

 (Orchestes alni Leach) also attacks the leaves, as well as Phyllobius alni Fab. y 

 belonging to the same family, and Galeruca lineola Fab. (the Chrysomela 

 grisea alni, fern., of De Geer). Amongst lepidopterous insects, Cerura vinula, 

 Pygae v ra bucephala, Notodonta rfromedarius, Lophopteryx camelina, Orgyia 

 antiqua, Zeuzera ae'sculi, Porthesia chrysorrhceX all belonging to the Linnasan 

 i?6mbyces; Apatela /eporina, Acronycta alni and psi (or dagger moths), 

 belonging to the JVbctuidae ; Geometra ulmaria, Drepana falcataria, and se- 

 veral !Tortricidae and T'ineidee, feed, in the larva state, upon the alder. Some 

 of these being, however, general feeders, are not so injurious as the others. 



Statistics. Recorded Trees. The finest alder trees which Mitchell ever saw were probably the 

 same as those alluded to by Gilpin (p. 1682,), in the Bishop of Durham's park, at Bishop- Auckland, where 

 a tree, in 1818, had a trunk which measured 11 ft. in circumference. It grew upon a knoll on a 

 swamp. The finest alder poles the same author ever ob- 

 served were in Arnold's Vale, below Sheffield Place, Sussex : .$t ., 1 54 L 2 

 in 1815, these were from 60 ft. to 70 ft. high. The alders on 

 the banks of the river Findhorn have been already men- 

 tioned. 



Existing Trees. In England, in the environs of London, 

 at Ham House, Essex, A. g. emarginata is 15ft. high, the 

 diameter of the trunk 2 ft. 4 in., and of the head 28 ft. ; at 

 Syon, A. g. laciniata (fig. 1542.) is 63ft. high, the diameter of 

 the trunk 3 ft., and of the head 63 ft. ; at Kenwood, Hamp. 

 stead, 60 years planted, the species is 60 ft. high, the diameter 

 of the trunk 2 ft. 10 in., and of the head 60 ft. In Devon- 

 shire, at Killerton, it is 56ft. high, with a trunk 3ft. Sin. 

 in diameter : in Dorsetshire, at Melbury Park, 100 years 

 planted, the species is 50ft. high, the diameter of the trunk 

 3 ft., and of the head 46 ft. ; and A. g. laciniata is 50 ft. high: 



in Somersetshire, at Nettlecombe, the species is 35ft high , ^IHni^^m^ivSf^V 

 the diameter of the trunk 2 ft. 10 in., and of the head 32 ft.; 

 in Surrey, at Farnham Castle, 50 years planted, it is 50ft. 

 high ; at Woburn Farm, A. g. laciniata is 70 ft. high, diameter of the trunk 4ft., and of the head 

 65 ft. ; in Sussex, at Westdean, A. g. laciniata, 12 years planted, is 32 ft, high: in Berkshire, at Bear 

 Wood, 12 years planted, the species is 40 ft. high. ; in Buckinghamshire, at Temple House, 40 years 

 planted, it is 50ft. high ; in Cambridgeshire, in the Cambridge Botanic Garden, it is 5()ft. high, 

 the diameter of the trunk 2 ft. 5 in., and of the head 36 ft ; in Denbighshire, at Llanbede Hall, it is 

 54ft. high, the diameter of the trunk 3ft., and of the head 34ft. ; in Herefordshire, at Eastnor 

 Castle, 18 years planted, it is 60ft. high : in Hertfordshire, at Cheshunt, 8 years planted, it is 

 30 ft. high ; and 10 years planted, it is 20 ft. high : in Lancashire, at Latham House, 50 years planted, 

 it is 58 ft. high, the diameter of the trunk 3ft., and of the head 52ft.; A. g. lacini&ta, 20 years 

 planted, is 36ft. high : in Leicestershire, at Elvaston Castle, the species is 89ft. high, with a trunk 

 2 ft. 7 in. in diameter ; at Doddington Park, 35 years planted, it is 41 ft. high : in Monmouthshire, 

 at Dowlais House, 12 years planted, it is 35ft. high ; in Northamptonshire, at Wakefield Lodge, 



