298 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[September 15, 1688. 



an imperfect screen, or wind break, during the 

 winter ; but even at this time it is an interesting 

 object, owing to the conspicuousness of its large 

 green buds. From its leafing time until late in the 

 autumn it never loses its effectiveness, as, irrespective 

 of its flowers in the spring, and its fruit, which is now 

 swelling out, the character of its foliage gives it a 

 claim to a front rank amongst summer leafing trees. 

 Where the darker shades of green so largely pre- 

 ponderate, as in the ordinary English landscape, a 

 break of foliage of a lighter hue is always acceptable. 

 If for no other reason than this, an occasional group 

 of the White Beam is very useful. Even in perfectly 

 still weather, when the face of its leaves is alone 

 seen, the difference in colour is enough to at once 

 attract attention, but when the tree is stirred by a 

 slight rush of air, the appearance presented by the 

 underside of its leaves, is in complete contrast to its 

 ordinary surroundings. This mealy whiteness, it is 

 true, is also possessed by the white Poplar and other 

 trees of the genus, but is much more marked in the case 

 of the White Beam, no doubt on account of the larger 

 size of its leaves. There is another point, too, with 

 regard to this tree which is worthy of note, viz., that 

 it is only moderately dense in habit, and roots 

 deeply, thus allowing grass and other things to grow 

 beneath it. Many kinds of trees interfere seriously 

 with hedges ; indeed, so far in some cases as to kill 

 them outright. This evil is much less in the case 

 of the White Beam than with many species. It is, 

 therefore, a suitable tree for planting near live fences, 

 a thing which often has to be done, especially in the 

 case of the narrow belts by roadsides and similar 

 positions. Another recommendation for certain 

 classes of planting is the fact that it only attains a 

 moderate height. As a young tree it grows with a 

 fair amount of rapidity, but after reaching the height 

 of 18 or 20 feet makes very little further growth 

 with respect to height, although it remains robust 

 f )r a large number of years. Where used near the 

 dwelling-house this is a valuable quality, and one 

 too often lost sight of when planting in immediate 

 proximity to the house is carried out. As its habit 

 is naturally symmetrical, it is, as a rule, desirable to 

 allow it to assume its own form, but when necessary 

 it may be cut without hesitation, as it bears lopping 

 well. Being so little grown, at any rate in the part 

 of the country from which I write, its wood has not 

 auy recognised commercial value, but is hard and 

 fine grained. D. J. Y. 



FcEMONTIA CALIFOHNICA. 



Near London we generally see this fine shrub 

 trained to a wall, and it is not in all seasons that we 

 are favoured with a sight of its golden blooms. At 

 Colwyn Bay, North Wales, however, as we see from 

 photograph obligingly communicated by Mr. A. 0. 

 Walker, it forms a spreading bush some 7 feet high, 

 and as much or more through, and covered with 

 bloom. 



Magnolia hypoleuca. 



This new Japanese species is figured in the number 

 of the Garden and Forest for August 22. It is like 

 M. raacrophylla, and has creamy-white flowers, ex- 

 haling a delicious perfume. The tree is a native of 

 the mountains of Southern Yesso, and its timber is 

 used by the Japanese in the manufacture of objects 

 to be lacquered. It was introduced to the United 

 States in 1865 by Mr. Thomas Hogg, and has proved 

 hardy. 



The Walnut. 



A short time ago I saw a couple of trees of the 

 common Walnut sold for £30. There was a quantity 

 of fine old Oak sold at the same time, but foot for 

 foot this could have scarcely realised more than half 

 the price. The sudden popularity of its foreign rivals 

 has, no doubt, put our English grown Walnut into 

 the shade, yet even now when compared with the 

 figures obtainable for other common timbers, the 

 position of the Walnut is not nearly so bad as would 

 appear on the first blush. It is a tree of course which 

 it would be doubtful policy to plant in large quanti- 

 ties, but a dozen or two upon a place would mean but 

 }ift!a outlay, aud they may he. established in celt'. 



nooks and corners, which would be of but small 

 value for anything else. [Why not by the acre ? 

 The nuts fetch good prices, as well as the timber. 

 Ed.] The instances I have quoted above may perhaps 

 be a little out of the ordinary way, as there was con- 

 siderable competition, but allowing for this, I very 

 much doubt if there are any common woods, with 

 perhaps the exception of the Ash and Sycamore, 

 which would fetch better figures. A further recom- 

 mendation of the Walnut is the fact that not unfre- 

 quently quite a small revenue is gained from its 

 fruit. It was only the other day a very moderate- 

 sized tree was pointed out to me, the fruit of which, 

 sold as it grew last year, realised half-a-sovereign. 

 This of itself is not a great sum, but when 

 it is remembered that it represents the rent 

 of an acre of land upon which the tree grew, it 

 will be seen that it is no bad return. This was in 

 the corner of a pasture field, and the occupier values 

 the tree for its shade alone, and being within view of 

 the house it is also an ornament. The two last 

 named qualities many other trees would, of course, 

 possess, but not a like value of its wood and fruit. 

 D. J. Y. 



Forestry. 



Growth of Conifees after being Felled. — It 

 occasionally happens, particularly on peaty soils, that 

 stumps of the Larch and Silver Fir continue to pro- 

 duce annual layers of woody matter for several 

 years after the trees have been felled ; but it is not 

 so well known that the Douglas Fir (Pseudo-Tsuga 

 Douglasii) is likewise capable of producing a similar 

 growth. This I detected some time ago in a strip of 

 mixed trees growing on loam incumbent on gravel, 

 and where at least two of the stumps of the Douglas 

 Fir, felled ten years before, had continued to produce 

 annual layers of wood, the ten layers being distinctly 

 visible with a low power of the microscope. What 

 puzzles me most in this particular instance is how 

 the roots retain their vitality in a sandy soil ; had 

 it been peat the wonder would have been less, as the 

 antiseptic properties of that soil exert a peculiar 

 influence in keeping the roots fresh and 

 sound for a long time, and consequently en- 

 couraging the formation of such growths. 

 Some persons attribute this peculiar formation of 

 woody matter to the fact that trees which produce 

 such had, previous to being felled, their roots 

 engrafted on those of a neighbour, and consequently 

 the production of annual layers of wood was hardly 

 to be wondered at. Such an example I had, fortu- 

 nately — for regarding this fact, I must own that I 

 was somewhat sceptical — the chance of examining at 

 the late Forestry Exhibition in Edinburgh ; for there 

 several exhibits, consisting of the roots of similar 

 species of trees joined together or engrafted on each 

 other, were to be seen. 



But how about isolated trees ? For Larches, 

 Silver Firs, and Douglas Spruces that have come 

 under my own notice, and which produced this abnor- 

 mal growth, were growing at too great distances apart 

 from other trees to suppose that their roots could 

 have been joined or engrafted on these. That 

 several trees have the power of forming an annual 

 layer of woody matter in the manner just described 

 is now beyond a doubt, and that even although the 

 roots from the stump of the felled tree have no con- 

 nection, whether by inarching or otherwise, with 

 those of neighbouring living specimens. Some years 

 ago I had occasion to have several Larches and 

 other trees cut down just at the time when the sap 

 was most abundant and iu freest circulation ; and 

 five at least of these, after being lotted outside the 

 woodland boundary, continued to form woody matter 

 around the margin of the stem at the point where 

 it had been severed from the stump, and went on 

 doing so until the sap in the trunk was fully 

 exhausted. 



By way of experiment a friend and myself, in a 

 plantation where a number of the Larch roots con- 

 tinued ja ft vigorous jtate after being deprived qf 



their tops, cut over several of the most likely 

 trees, those growing in peaty soil principally at 

 6 inches from ground level. They were carefully 

 felled with a sharp cross-cut saw, the saw-mark 

 being seen as nearly horizontal with the 

 ground level as possible, and every art used so as 

 to prevent the bark being loosened around the 

 collar of the stumps. Sections of nine of the trunks, 

 3 inches thick, were taken from the base of the butts, 

 or immediately above the saw-cut, and each labelled 

 similarly to that from which it was cut over in the 

 ground. The bntts in the ground were carefully 

 guarded and marked ; a label, clearly stating when 

 the trunk had been felled, and a conspicuous 

 figure corresponding with that on the section 

 legibly printed on the corner of each. Out of 

 the nine trees felled three continued to pro- 

 duce annual layers of wood, much to our joy and 

 satisfaction, whilst one other was but half decided, 

 growing partially from one of the sides, but it was 

 of little use for the experiment in hand. Seven years 

 after the trees were felled sections of the tree 

 stumps which had continued to grow were carefully 

 cut off, and on comparing these with their duplicates 

 it was found that they had produced extra layers 

 of woody deposit corresponding with the number of 

 years since the truuk had been cut from the roots. 

 The growth produced grow3 both upwards and 

 inwards, the heart of the old stump gradually dying 

 away as the young wood fills over and takes its 

 place. 



I have one example of a Larch root in which the 

 new wood has attained to a height of fully 3f inches 

 from the level of the old stem, but when the original 

 tree was cut I am unfortunately unable to say, but 

 in judging from the deposits, some of which are 

 hardly visible with the naked eye and required the 

 aid of a lens to decipher, I should say twenty-three 

 years. I have counted fully thirty of these annual 

 growths in a Larch stump, and in one instance the 

 new wood had almost completely enveloped or 

 covered over the surface of the old stem. 



The irregularity of growth of the wood, as also 

 great differences in size of the annual deposits, is a 

 matter that I have found to be most difficult to 

 account for, at least in anything like a satisfactory 

 way. 



Some times the deposit of fresh wood on one side 

 of the stem is nearly double of that on the opposite ; 

 while again the woody matter rests high on one side, 

 and rather inclines inwards towai ds the centre of the 

 stump on the other. The wood produced in this pe- 

 culiar way is hardly distinguishable from that formed 

 naturally, and after a testing examination has been 

 found to contain all the constituents of ordinary 

 timber of the same kind. 



Trees of very vigorous growth, growing in peaty 

 soil, reclaimed peat log principally, and from sixteen 

 to thirty years old, are most likely to produce the 

 growth just referred to. Older trees rarely do so, 

 but occasionally in sandy loam, as well as peat, this 

 peculiar growth is detected. 



Grigor, in his Arboriculture, says, that none of the 

 Conifera spring from the roots when felled, but that 

 stumps of the Silver Fir have been known, after the 

 removal of the tree, to produce annual circles of 

 woody matter, &c. Now in this — that none of the 

 Conifera; spring from the roots when felled — 

 Grigor was in error, for Sequoia sempervirens and 

 Cunninghamia sinensis behave in this rather erratic 

 manner, examples of which have come under my 

 own notice, and I rather think that two others, 

 belonging to quite distinct genera, may be linked 

 with the Sequoia and Cunninghamia. 



Propagation of the Sequoia is frequently effected 

 by removing these shoots with a small portion of the 

 stem, and planting in saudy soil, while we have 

 frequently resorted to layering similar saplings of this 

 tree as a means of increasing our stock. There is a 

 curious example of this on Sir William Verner's 

 estate in the North of Ireland, where the shoots sent 

 out by a large Redwood, after being cut over at 

 ground level, were layered around the stem, and the 

 appearance now presented is as interesting as it is 

 unusual. The soil was peaty, with a great quantity 

 of decayed and decaying vegetable matter atop, and 

 the stem of the tree cut over was about 3 feet in 

 diameter. 



In connection with the roots of coniferous trees 

 becoming joined together or engrafted on each other, 

 this may be a common enough occurrence ; but what 

 I would' like to ask is, if any of your correspondents 

 have known of an instance in which the roots of a 

 coniferous tree had engrafted itself on that of of a 

 harflwqod P A. D, lYebfter, HahuGcl Park, Kent, 



