532 Annual Increase of Trunks of Timber Trees. 



cesslvely corrugated. It measures 2 ft. 3J in. and was planted a slender twig 

 in 1816, by a young lady of rare goodness and beauty — now no more. 



I must not omit a prodigious wilding apple tree, never grafted ; planted 1777; 

 girting 6 ft. 8 in.; which, at 7 ft., divaricates into 12 great arms, and 

 shoots bold and upright, like a forest tree. The produce of this tree, a coarse 

 culinary middle-sized fruit, was one year sold to some Welsh fishermen for eight 

 sovereigns ; and a few strikes were gathered afterwards, which they left. It 

 has long gone by the name of the Gamut, from a humourous friend having 

 likened it to the cluster of notes on musical staves. These orchards, about 

 15 acres, but interspersed with forest and ornamental trees, produced, by a 

 register ktpt for 25 years, about 800/. in that time; one year making 120/., 

 and some years scarcely 10/. 



I now proceed to some trees of my own planting. From the earliest years, 

 I had a propensity for gardening, encouraged by my father allotting me a por- 

 tion of ground for raising trees, which I sold to him for pocket-money. In 

 1787, I sowed seeds of what we here call the black larch (L. microcarpa). 

 Four of those in the row from the Holyhead road toward the now cider-mill 

 girt, tree xiii. 5 ft. 3Jin. : xv. 4 ft. 11 in. : xvii. 5 ft. 1^ in. : xxvii. 5 ft. 

 3i in. There are few common larch mixed with these ; but those girted are 

 of the black. The largest of Scotch pines sown the same time, and growing 

 70 yards south from the middle of Lime Avenue, 6 ft. 3 in. 



It is a very common saying, that no man who plants a walnut lives to see 

 it bear : this I, not a very old man (53), am yearly confuting ; having long ago 

 gathered strikes of fruit from one tree, planted by me a nut in 1792, and 

 growing at the upper end of Mount Orchard, near the Mount : it now girths 

 3 ft. 3 in. and is a very vigorous and noble tree. Another, to the n. e., planted 

 same time, I ft. 11 in. Another, about middle of Great Orchard, 1 ft, 9i in. 

 There were eight of these; but the other five are much less. These are the 

 large-fruited sort, here called bannets (probably ball-nuts). I think they make 

 finer trees; but the kernel is very inferior in flavour, even when it does ripen 

 well, to that of the small-fruited sort. Many may smile at my whimsies ; but 

 I wish to, and will, record, that in the last enumerated tree are embedded, 

 a tooth of my father, of myself, and of my old friend the celebrated Bewick, 

 who also has one in his own oak at the corner of my barn. Indeed, there are 

 here many reliques, coins, plates, and glass-bottles with inscriptions, embedded 

 in, and buried under, trees ; so that if poets may be said, with as great truth 

 as fancy, to " find tongues in trees ;" future philosophers may be amused also 

 to find teeth in trees. 



Allow me also to record that, in 1825, I gathered acorns from Glendwr's 

 Oak at Shelton, 36 of which were, in 1834, planted in a hedge between two 

 fields (that on the north called the Daisies, and south the Dinmont), running 

 west, toward an avenue of walnuts, planted the same year. On the 23d of April, 

 1808, a walnut was planted near my western entrance gate, by myself and con- 

 vivial friends, being Shakspeare's birthday, which has here been since regularly 

 celebrated. It was then one year old, and had an inscribed bottle, coins, and 

 other reliques placed beneath. It now girts lOiin. I would fain record a 

 venei'able and favourite mulberry, whose spreading arms began to break with 

 their own weight. These T tried to support with iron cramps; but nothing 

 would do. I then decapitated the whole : one side shot out vigorously; but 

 the other looks at me (if I may be allowed a Latin pun) with a memento 

 mori. 



I feel, and fear, these records may savour somewhat of vanity ; but they do 

 not arise from any supposition that my trees are better, bigger, or more beau- 

 tiful than others. Planting has, on this little propert}', been one of the fond 

 and favourite toys, or hobby-horses, for two generations: one of rational and 

 cordial pleasure, and of no inconsiderable profit; and the object of this state- 

 ment is to show how much may be done, on so small a scale, and where so 

 very little of the land is lost to pasture and tillage, and in so short a time : 

 for the mother of my worthy housekeeper, Anne Dovaston, now living (85) 



