68 CRATJ3GUS. 



perhaps, cause surprise, and some of our readers may think 

 that, in doing so, we have invested it with a character it 

 does not possess or deserve ; as our apology for its intro- 

 duction, we refer them to the statistics of this tree con- 

 tained in the "Arboretum Britannicum;" there they will find 

 a list of Hawthorn trees recorded, growing in various parts 

 of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with dimensions suffi- 

 cient to entitle them to be considered as trees of the second 

 and third magnitude ; many of these are stated as possess- 

 ing trunks with circumferences varying from four to up- 

 wards of ten feet, and a height, though not always corre- 

 sponding to the strength of the trunk or the spread of the 

 head, in some instances as much as forty-five feet. In addi- 

 tion to those recorded in the above-named work, we know of 

 many other instances in which it has attained a timber-like 

 size, and, if required, could furnish another list, nearly as 

 ample as that of Mr. Loudon's : many of these are in na- 

 tural or wild situations where the plant has sprung from the 

 seed, others have been planted and their after-growth care- 

 fully attended to. Among those of the latter description, 

 two of the finest we have seen are now growing at Jardine 

 Hall, Dumfriesshire, the seat of Sir William Jardine, Bart. ; 

 the largest of these has a stem of seven feet eight inches in 

 height, the circumference of the trunk at one foot from the 

 ground eight feet, and at the insertion of the branches eight 

 feet six inches, and the diameter of the circle overspread by 

 the branches is nearly fifty feet. Both of these are trees 

 of elegant and picturesque form, with falling or slightly 

 depending branches, devoid of that rounded or cabbage- 

 like head, which the Thorn so frequently exhibits in parks 

 and lawns, or in situations where, during youth, it has been 

 kept down by the shade and drip of other trees, or been 

 cropped and browsed on by cattle. The tree whose mea- 



