WOODS AND PLANTATIONS. 443 



one good plant of which may be seen (1868) standing nearly thirteen 

 feet high, which I believe is the largest in the kingdom. I have one 

 growing on the lawn in front of my house which is now six feet high, 

 and making an annual growth of nearly one foot. The soil is a black 

 loam. 



Cupressus torulosa (Don). This is found in the Western Himalayas, 

 where it grows to a height of one hundred feet and upwards ; Mr Gordon 

 says " one hundred and fifty feet in height," and that they are all as 

 as straight as an arrow, with the branches drooping slightly downward, 

 and so arranged as to make the tree a perfect cone. 



The seed of this tree was largely imported in 1852 by H.M. Commis- 

 sioners of Woods and Forests. It grows in the most inaccessible parts 

 of the Himalayas, and therefore its timber has not been fully tried, and 

 no correct opinion can as yet be given from trees of home-growth. In 

 the severe winter of 1860-61, a great many fine specimens were killed. 

 It cannot be called a hardy tree, and yet it may live in our climate for 

 a long period, as it is very seldom we experience such a severe winter as 

 that which I have mentioned. 



Wellingtonia gigantca (Lindley). This is a native of California, where 

 it reaches the immense size of from two hundred to four hundred feet 

 in height, and thirty feet in diameter, and grows at an elevation of fully 

 five thousand feet above sea-level, in latitude 38 N". and longitude 

 129 10' W. The bark of the old trees is said to be fully fifteen inches 

 in thickness. It is also called Sequoia Wellingtonia in Lawson's 

 ' Pinetum Britannicum,' reasons for which are there given, but which 

 need not be entered into here. I prefer giving it the name which was 

 applied to it by the late Professor Lindley in the ' Gardeners' Chronicle.' 

 In 1853 our American friends called it Washingtonia Californica and 

 Taxodium Washingtonianum, in memory of the great Washington. 



This tree is the largest known on the earth. It is said that, when 

 of mature growth, it is about three hundred feet high, aud ninety feet 

 in circumference at the root. The ' Pinetum Britannicum ' says, with 

 reference to it : " Mercantile men may bring home to their minds the 

 enormous size of these trees in another way viz., that used by Messrs 

 Sang, who calculated the quantity of wood in a tree, and its price at a 

 Id. per foot of inch deal, which gives the astounding result of 6250 as 

 the value of a single tree. Although this is a good mode of showing the 

 enormous quantity of timber in one of those trees, it would not do for 

 practical calculations of its value ; for, as we shall presently see, the 

 timber, instead of producing Id. per foot, is worthless for any purpose 

 yet known, and it would probably bring no return at all." The bark 

 of part of the trunk of one of those trees will have been seen by many 



