1738 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Cultivation 



The hawthorn, though it grows on almost all soils, succeeds best in a rich 

 loam, and does well on strong clay. It is propagated by seeds, which as they lie 

 over for a year, should be mixed with ordinary soil or sand in pits or heaps, where 

 they are kept until the second year following, when they may be sown in Feb- 

 ruary or March, Young plants should be removed from the seed bed at the end of 

 the first year, and after standing in nursery lines for two years, be planted out. 

 The varieties are budded or grafted on seedlings of the common species. 



The most important use of the hawthorn is as a hedge plant. Though 

 hedges appear to have been in use in England from the time of the Romans, 

 they were not generally planted to enclose ordinary fields and meadows till about the 

 end of the seventeenth century. Dr. Walker states ^ that the first hedges in Scotland 

 were planted by Cromwell's soldiers in East Lothian and Perthshire. 



Fine old hawthorns, with trunks of great girth and wide-spreading branches, 

 exist in many parks throughout the country ; and tall slender specimens are 

 occasionally seen, drawn up in woods. We may mention a few, remarkable for age, 

 though doubtless there are many quite as large that we have not heard of. 



An immense old thorn, at Hethel in Norfolk, was first mentioned by Marsham, 

 who, in a letter to the Bath Society about 1 740, made its girth 9 ft. i in. at four feet 

 from the ground. Grigor ^ states on the authority of H. Gurney, Esq., that the first 

 Sir Thomas Beevor, who owned the place towards the end of the eighteenth century, 

 put a railing round it, which was subsequently repaired, and the spreading limbs 

 propped up by Mr. Gurney. Grigor says that the trunk measured 1 2 ft. i in. at one 

 foot, and 14 ft. 3 in. at five feet, whilst the branches, though several large ones had 

 been lost, spread over an area 31 yards round. Both the trunk and the large 

 branches were then hollow, but the wood sound and hard. Sir Hugh Beevor in 

 1895 found it to be 13^ ft. at eighteen inches from the ground where the girth was 

 least. Miss Eaton sent me a photograph in 1903 which showed branches supported 

 by numerous props. Mr. Edwards, who photographed the tree in September 1912, 

 tells me that the tree now consists of several stems formed by the splitting of the 

 original trunk. The branches, which now measure 37 yards round, are sound and 

 covered with leaves and fruit, though bearing many tufts of mistletoe. It is 

 protected from cattle by a rail ; and the branches are supported by numerous props 

 (Plate No. 378). 



In the park at Holwood House, Kent, Mr. A. D. Webster records^ a tree, 

 which in 1888 was 14 ft. 6 in. in girth at three feet from the ground, above 

 which it divided into six limbs, measuring at a yard from the fork, 4 ft. 2 in., 4 ft., 

 5 ft. 8 m., 2 ft. 8 in., 4 ft. 4 in., and 3 ft. 5 in. respectively. Its height was 42 ft., 

 with a spread of branches 63 ft. in diameter. This tree was growing in strong 

 clayey loam, and was in perfect health. 



Mr. Edwin Lees described * a remarkable hawthorn at Lenchford, in Worcester- 



1 Essay, on Nat. Hist. 54 (1812). 2 Eastern Arboretum, 282 (1841). 



Trans. Roy. Scot. Arbor. Soc. xii. 311 (1889). 4 Card. Chron. iii. 688, figs. 141, 146 (:87s). 



