ArboT'eliim Britannicum. 23S' 



representing the characters of each tree, both in and Out of leaf; but I 

 greatly fear that to do this as it should be done will be enormously ex- 

 pensive, and to do it badly would be worse than not doing it at all. Very 

 few artists are capable of hitting off the characters of even our commonest 

 trees ; and many of our shrubs scarcely afford sufficiently strong characters 

 to allow of their being expressed on paper, at least on so small a scale as 

 must be adopted in your book. Nevertheless, I do not wish to discourage 

 you. 



I have often thought that a good quarto volume or more might be filled 

 by any one who had leisure and abilities, under the title of " A Sketch 

 of the Natural History of the Oak." This would include figures and 

 descriptions of the tree and all its parts 5 cultivation and growth ; rearing 

 and planting; timber, and its uses and durability; diseases; insects (with 

 figures) which feed on it, which are very numerous ; all sorts of oak anec- 

 dotes ; and ten thousand other matters which do not immediately occur to 

 one. In short the subject would branch out ad infinitum ; and this is what 

 you propose to do with all the trees and shrubs that will bear our climate I 

 Why do young oaks carry their leaves till spring, when the fresh ones 

 Come and push them off? And not only young oaks, but occasionally old 

 ones also ? I have myself an oak of considerable size, growing on a farm 

 about ten miles off, which holds its brown leaves every year till spring. 

 How long a shoot did you ever know an oak to make ? In answer, I ex- 

 tract the following from my memorandum book, made at the time, and on 

 which you may depend : — " Late in the spring of 1819 there were several 

 nights of very severe frost (particularly the 29th of May), which cut off 

 the ash, and oak, &c., turning the young shoots as black as if they had 

 been boiled ; in short, they were utterly killed ; nevertheless, the summer 

 of this year (1819) seemed to be particularly favourable to the growth of 

 young oak ; many made a shoot of 4 and 4| ft., and some of 5 ft., and I 

 ilieasured one (a seedling sown where it stood, of eight or nine years^ 

 growth) which made a shoot of 6 ft. 9| in. A young mulberry tree, which 

 had been much cut by the frosts in the end of May, afterwards made shoots 

 of 2 ft. The preceding summer (1818) had been very fine and hot, so 

 that the wood was well ripened ; and to this circumstance, probably, the 

 great shoots of 1819 are in good measure to be attributed." I may add, as 

 regards the soil in which the young oak grew that made a shoot of more 

 than 6 ft., that, before the ground was sown with acorns, the turf had been 

 pared off for garden purposes ; the soil left, therefore, was very shallow^ 

 and beneath it a loose rocky sandstone. In this situation most kinds of 

 trees grow remarkably well. 



The wood of the ivy is said to be good for the purpose of making 

 handles for workmen's tools, as e. g. the handles of a scythe, &c., because 

 the wood is of all others least apt to blister the hand. Is there any truth 

 in the old idea that the aromatic gum of the ivy, which is produced by 

 wounding the stem, is good for fishing-tackle, enticing the fish by its sweet 

 odour ? I hope you do not maintain, with some landscape-gardeners of 

 note, that ivy is not injurious to trees. I greatly admire ivy, and can show 

 on my own premises as fine (or finer) specimens as most people, and I 

 would not destroy it for the world ; yet 1 am quite satisfied it is injurious 

 to trees. I have cut down both fir and crab trees in which there were 

 deep wales made in the solid wood by the lapping of the ivy, in which j'ou 

 might lay your finger ; and yet I know practical woodmen who hold that 

 it does no harm, nay, that " it keeps the trees warm : " and true it is, that, 

 when a large body of ivy is suddenly cut off a tree, the tree is often injured 

 by the change. The woodmen above alluded to acknowledge that ivy in- 

 jures the bark of trees ; and therefore I should say, the wood and growth 

 too* 



Can you tell me why it is that so many healthy holly trees are always 

 barren ? — the two largest on my premises here (one an extraordinarily fine 



