Larix 365 



seasons the plantation was full of small birds, which were apparently feeding on the 

 larvae. 



Remarkable Trees 



To enumerate all the larches which are remarkable for their size and age in 

 Great Britain would be impossible, as in almost all places of sufficient age or im- 

 portance this was one of the first exotic conifers to be planted, but it will suffice to say 

 that many still exist in a sound condition which are 150 years or more old and exceed 

 100 feet in height. The tallest trees I have ever heard of were felled about the year 

 1890 in a deep valley near Croft Castle, Herefordshire, the seat of Capt. H. Kevill 

 Davies, which I visited in 1904 under the guidance of Mr. Openshaw, who assured 

 me that some trees there were 135 feet long at the point at which the tops were cut 

 off, with a diameter of 6 inches. This was confirmed by the woodman on the estate, 

 H. Prince, who estimated the tops to have been 10 to 15 feet long, making the trees 

 nearly if not quite 150 feet high.^ The soil is Old Red Sandstone and the situation 

 very sheltered. 1 have a record of a tree measuring 134 feet by 10 feet 8 inches 

 which grew in Yorkshire on Lord Masham's estate, and at Penrhyn Castle, North 

 Wales, Henry measured a tree 1 18 feet by 7 feet 10 inches, and I saw another at the 

 same place growing in a low, very wet, almost swampy situation very near the sea 

 among hardwoods which was about 90 feet by 12 feet, and judging from the rings ot 

 felled trees lying near it was about 130 years old. This is remarkable from the 

 fact of the conditions of growth being so extremely unlike those which are usually 

 considered natural to and suitable for the larch, and I can only explain them by 

 the fact that the natural drainage was better than it seemed. Certainly I would 

 not expect larch now planted in such situations to escape disease. 



At Ombersley Court, Worcestershire, the seat of Lord Sandys, a tree is grow- 

 ing on the lawn in deep red loam, which exceeds in girth any larch that I know of 

 in England. It is no less than 15 feet 7 inches at five feet from the ground, though 

 it falls away rapidly higher up, and is only about 80 feet high, and has very large 

 and wide-spreading branches. 



At Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire, the seat of Lord Leigh, there are some 

 very large and picturesque larches, near the park-keeper's house, which look 

 as old as any in England. One of them, measuring 14 feet 8 inches in girth, 

 has a mass of rugged branches, some ot which touch the ground, where they 

 seem to have taken root. Another is about 80 feet by 14 feet. In the grounds 

 of Warwick Castle there is a group of seven ancient larches, as well as one 

 in the castle yard whose top curves into a drooping form. 



In Gloucestershire there are many fine trees of this species on the Cotswold 

 hills, among which may be mentioned two near the Woodhouse in Earl Bathurst's 

 woods (Plate 98). These are growing on dry and rather shallow soil, overlying 

 Oolite rock, and are over 100 feet high by 11 feet and 12 feet in girth respectively. 



' Mv. T. E. Groom of Hereford svrites to me that he measured several of these trees himself, and has a clear recollection 

 that two of tliem were over 140 feet long as topped for sale, where they would be 5 or 6 inches in diameter. The quarter- 

 girth under bark half-way up was, however, only about 14 inches, which gives their cubic content as about 190 feet. 



