646 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 
Romans. Ray states, Synopsis, 230, published in 1690, that the ayeamiore ‘was then 
planted in cemeteries and about the houses of the nobility, and that it was nowhere 
wild in England. It would appear from this that it was by no means a common 
tree in Britain in the seventeenth century. (A. H.) 
CULTIVATION 
The sycamore, or plane as it is commonly called in Scotland, is a tree which 
thrives in almost any dry soil, and seems to reach its greatest size or perfection 
in the colder hilly parts of England and Scotland, where nearly all the finest 
specimens we know of are to be found. In the Cotswold hills it is the only 
tree, except the wych-elm and the beech, which attains a maximum of size, and 
even here there are none quite equal to some trees in Scotland. 
It is absolutely unaffected by the severest frosts’ at any season, and is rarely 
attacked by insects or fungoid diseases, ripens seed profusely almost every year, 
and reproduces itself almost everywhere with such ease that in my own district 
I believe it might overrun the country if allowed to do so. It grows rapidly 
when young, and, though not usually planted as a forest tree, is well suited to 
produce timber in windy situations, where more valuable trees will only languish. 
Its foliage in spring and summer is very handsome, but assumes a dirty and 
ragged aspect in autumn, especially in smoky districts, and therefore it is not 
suitable for town planting. It does not grow so well, or live so long on sand, gravel, 
or on heavy clay as on limestone. Its branching habit makes careful pruning or close 
crowding necessary if clean tall stems are desired, and as its timber is most valuable 
in the form of clean boles of considerable girth, it must be looked on as of some- 
what uncertain economic value as a forest tree. But I have found the sycamore 
a very useful tree for filling up blanks in thin woods, where, when once established, 
it grows on dry soil at least twice as fast as the ash, and four or five times as 
fast as the oak. 
No tree can be raised from seed more cheaply and easily than the syca- 
more, and grafting or budding is only resorted to in the case of varieties. 
The seed falls in the late autumn and winter, and grows in abundance in 
gravel paths, so that when only a few are wanted, self-sown seedlings can usually 
be obtained. The seed germinates very early, often in February, though if kept 
dry it should not be sown before March. It is very liable to be smothered by 
grass in the first year, and is so easy to transplant that it will be found better to 
move self-sown seedlings at a year old to the nursery. 
In the spring of 1900 I found great quantities of young plants recently 
germinated on the top of a bare hill pasture, where I wished to renew a clump 
of trees forming a conspicuous landmark, and had a fence put round them, in 
order to protect the seedlings from rabbits and cattle; but in the summer I 
found that every one had been suppressed by grass. In the following year I sowed 
sycamore seeds with many other tree seeds in lines in cultivated soil, where I 
1 According to Lord Leicester it is on the coast of Norfolk the hardiest tree, except Quercus Zlex, which bears better the 
force of the gales from the sea.—(A. H.) 
