August 24, 1876. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



171 



the timber market ; and so far is the Oak to covet, and this 

 with the less sin, as it is the more prevailing kind. Though 

 the sessiliflora is counted a handsome tree for its upright 

 habit, graceful branches, and larger and brighter leaves, it 

 matters less, inasmuch as only when young is there much per- 

 ceptible difference between the two species or varieties in size 

 and growth. Given a clay loam for soil and subsoil, with 

 natural or artificial surface drainage, and the English Oak will 

 not lag far behind rival timber trees in quick return or remu- 

 nerative growth, nor yet cause a pang of hope deferred by de- 

 laying the promise of a distinct feature of the landscape. To 

 say nothing of coppice wood, it is calculated that by careful 

 thinning, selection, and replanting, an Oak plantation may be 

 made to pay in suchwise that there Bhall be no serious locking. 

 np of capital between the sowing and the ninetieth year — in 

 favourable soils a good time for cutting. By that time the Oak 

 will be eminently picturesque; though, as Gilpin notes.it is 

 " through age that it acquires its greatest beauty, which often 

 increases, even into decay, if any proportion exists between the 

 stem and the branches." 



For its merit of indigeneity the British Oak should find 

 place in every English park and lawn meadow. It is a study 

 in bud, blossom, leaf, fruit, and life; in its epiphytes, the 

 Ferns, Fungi, and Mosses, whioh add to its interest, whether 

 standing or prostrate ; and even in the curious spangle on the 

 Oak leaf, of which the clusters puzzle the uninitiated, a phaBe 

 of insect architecture, a golden-brown egg, which supplies the 

 pheasant with one of its choicest delicacies. But, not to linger 

 on curiosities, we would fain draw the attention of those who 

 rate present pleasure above their debt to posterity, to a feasible 

 compromise in Oak planting. Where ornament is the prime 

 aim, but use and profit still a partial consideration, they 

 might do worse than plant the Quercus Cerris, or Turkey Oak, 

 a deciduous tree with a mosssy hemispherical cup, and lobed 

 irregularly-toothed leaves of a glossy green above and an almost 

 white beneath. Though deciduous itself it hybridises with 

 the Evergreen Oak, and might pass for an Ilex by reason of its 

 leaves, though they die in autumn, clinging to it through the 

 winter. Its rapid growth makes it a straight tall adult when 

 the English Oak is yet a child, but candour bids us add that 

 this maturity is purchased at the cost of the grandeur of rami- 

 fication to which the latter attains at full growth. Still it 

 is a consideration to get an Oak which in a good dry loam 

 will repay its planter in forty years, either by its park-like 

 aspect standing, or its availableness as wainscot of beautiful 

 grain when felled. It was introduced into Britain from the 

 south of Europe in 1735, though indigenous in Asia Minor, 

 and is propagated by the acorns ; though its snb-evergreen 

 varieties, the Lucombe and Fnlham Oaks, hybrids between it 

 and the Cork tree, can only be inoreased in their purity by 

 grafting. Both these are alike in breadth of leaf, but the 

 Fnlham Oak's habit of growth is round-headed, that of the 

 Lucombe decidedly spiral. The original Fulham Oak is 

 to be seen at Messrs. Osborne's of Fulham, a locale where 

 many introductions and hybrids of the seventeenth century 

 may be studied with profit. A charming variety of the 

 Q. Cerris is the Q. Cerris pendnla, a weeping tree very worthy 

 of culture.* The Cork tree (Q. Suber) ia a rarer and less strik- 

 ing tree than its cross-bred progeny. It is an evergreen intro- 

 duced from Spain, and in a rich dark loam will grow to 40 feet, 

 and exhibit a luxuriance of dark green foliage, contrasting well 

 with its froBted silver bark. This latter is detached from trees 

 of twenty years' growth and upwards " in pieces about a foot 

 square and 1 inch or more thick, and the operation is repeated 

 every eight or ten years, by which time the cork substance is 

 renewed without any detriment to the tree." Loudon and 

 Grigor quote the king of Cork trees as at Mamhead, Devon ; 

 but there is one of fine proportions in the Fulham Nursery. 

 The Ilex needs little recommendation, and practised horticul- 

 turists still less caution against undue multiplication of it. Its 

 drawback is a certain sombrenesa ; its charm a grandness of 

 diameter, arising from its beiDg clothed from head to foot, 

 when it stands out alone, with a dense mass of leaves and 

 branches. Of later years America has contributed many valu- 

 able species of the Oak to our parks and gardens. The kindred 



* Bat the common Oak has its pendulous variety, a famous instance of 

 which is the Weeping Oak at MoecaB Park, Hereford ; the aeorns of which, if 

 planted, generate Oaks of more or leSB weeping habit. Loudon figured this 

 tree in his " Arboretum." Its girth at 5 feet from the ground is now 14 feet 

 8 inches, but though several of its branches still justify its distinctive name, 

 the upper branches now take so much of the normal character of the Oak as 

 to be somewhat disappointing. 



rubra and coccinea are both presumably hardy, and both notable 

 for a glossy green summer foliage, which turns in autumn to 

 a rich scarlet or purple. The leaves are large and oblong, 

 on long stalks ; and fine specimens of Q. coccinea are to be 

 seen at Croome in Worcestershire, and at Strathfieldsaye. The 

 speciality of Quercus alba is its Bilvery bark ; in fruit and leaf 

 it is a finer sessiliflora. It wants a good soil and a warm 

 situation; with whioh advantages, in the Grove at Muswell 

 Hill, there is one which, at Beventy-two years of age, stands 

 61 feet high. Selby's doubts of its success in this country 

 arose probably rather from observation of its slowneES of 

 growth in exposed places than from any susceptibility to 

 frosts. The Q. nigra, or American Black Jack, is bb fastidious 

 about soil as itB opposite. It takes its name from the blackish- 

 red which characterises its wedge-shaped leaves before the 

 fall. The Phellos, or Willow Oak, deserves planting for its 

 elegant habit of spray, as well as for its hardihood ; and the 

 Q. prinus is attractive for its Chestnut-shaped leaf, and is 

 quite hardy in the neighbourhood of London. 



From a contemplation of both, with an eye to the picturesque, 

 Gilpin ranks the Ash next to the Oak — the " Venue of the 

 Wood " next after the Hercules. Yet it is not a tree for every 

 situation, and, though strikingly effective at the corner of a 

 wood or on the slope of a ruined abbey, should be sparingly 

 planted near a gentleman's residenoe, and this because, coming 

 latest of all trees into leaf, it is almoBt the first to shed its 

 foliage. So much is this the case, that the expansion of the 

 Ash leaf is reckoned as safe an indicator of the season of 

 bedding-out as the fall of it is a hint to remind such fine folk 

 to shelter. As a natural result of such a long term of leafless- 

 ness too many Ash about a place impart to it a cold and barren 

 appearance. But even the common Ash, in maturity and in 

 age, with a congenial soil and situation (a hill bottom, or a 

 well-drained riverside slope, and a deep loam) is a tree to ad- 

 mire and reverenoe. One at Woburn Park measures more 

 than 00 feet in height and 20 in girth, and contains 872 feet 

 of timber. Others at Longleat Bhow 50 feet of clear stem, 

 and measure 14 feet round. It is, however, best planted by 

 itself, though a stray giant here and there may well diversify 

 the park or pleasaunce. 



But if late leafing disqualifies the Ash for vicinage to the 

 mansion and its wings, no such charge can lie at the door of 

 the English Elm, whioh, coming late into leaf, is one of the 

 latest of forest trees to succumb to autumnal frosts. A doubtful 

 native, it must have been acclimatised, if at all, in the days of 

 the Heptarchy, and since then has contributed more than any 

 other tree, save the Oak, to the charm of rural England. In 

 the valley of the Severn it has been so long naturalised that 

 neighbouring counties distinguish it as the "Worcestershire" 

 Elm; and though its introduction to Ireland, Scotland, and 

 the Border belongs to a comparatively definable period, it may 

 be said to have found a home in the south of England from 

 time immemorial. That its form and growth with us eclipses 

 that of Continental Elms appears in the fact of its having 

 been exported from us to Spain to form the avenues at Madrid 

 and Aranjuez in the reign of Philip II. It is probable that 

 English avenues have been decimated in number through an 

 absurd craze which possessed proprietors in the early part of 

 this century to make war upon straight lines and double rows ; 

 yet wherever, as at Oxford, Cambridge, and here and there in 

 the West of England, the old Elm avenues of two hundred 

 years ago still survive, they assert a superiority in this fashion 

 to avenues of Beech or Lime, or any other deciduous tree. 

 To modern experiments in avenue-making with coniferous sub- 

 jects — Arauoarias, Deodars, Wellingtonias — there must ever be 

 this drawback, that such double columns can never be in un- 

 dress ; whereas the Elm array is stately and impressive when 

 off duty in the leafless seaBon, just as it is gay and glancing, 

 a mass of shade and shelter wonderfully disguised, when on 

 parade and in full foliage. As much may be said for it in 

 groups of two and three, or in the wilderness, which is a com- 

 mon feature of manor-house precincts. And it is indisputably 

 the finest park timber after the Oak, in respect no less of its 

 massy proportions than of the loose Bet of its crowded but 

 small leaves, the cheerful green of which deepens as the 

 months wane, till at last it becomes a clear yellow. Not 

 every day, of course, does the tonriBt come across Buch Elms 

 as the " Crawley " or the Hatfield, or Buch as are seen at 

 Sion Houbo or Longleat ; but a girth of 14 or 15 feet at 5 feet 

 from the ground is not uncommon in a kindly soil — to wit, 

 a free, open loam, without stagnant water. An Elm at Croft 

 Castle, Herefordshire, is 120 feet in height. After eighty years 



