i820 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



200 to the hectare (2I acres) being thick enough on the ground. He finds that 

 though they grow best on damp soil, yet it should be drained first if the water 

 stagnates ; and that successive crops may be taken, at periods of thirty years, without 

 diminishing the growth, provided the old stumps are grubbed. Pruning is con- 

 sidered essential, and this must be frequently attended to, up to a height of 20 to 

 30 ft. Though poplars are often pruned nearly up to the top in France, it is 

 evidently very prejudicial to their good growth. The mistletoe, which infests these 

 trees to such an extent in most parts of France, is not allowed to remain on the 

 branches at Pontvallain, but when it appears on the trunk it cannot be eradicated, 

 and usually ends by killing the tree. 



Remarkable Trees 



One of the largest poplars in England was cut down in March 1907, near 

 Cassio Bridge, Herts, and was sold to Messrs. East and Son, of Berkhamsted. 

 It was described and figured in the Timber Trades Journal of 13th April 1907, and 

 when measured by Sir Hugh Beevor in 1902 was 130 ft. high and 16 ft. 11 in. in 

 girth, and the contents of the butt alone were 56 ft. by 42I in. quarter girth, making 

 701 cubic feet. With the top and branches it was said to contain upwards of 1000 ft. 

 of timber. Messrs. East inform me that at 15 ft. from the butt they counted only 

 97 rings, which would make the age of this tree little over 100 years. Probably 

 no other tree on record in England has attained so great a size in so short a time. 

 Sir Hugh Beevor tells me that another tree near the same place, though not quite 

 so tall, measures 18 ft. in girth at 6 ft. from the ground.^ 



A very large tree was blown down early in January 1908 in the meadow of 

 Christ Church, Oxford. It was mentioned in the Oxford Times of i8th January 1908 

 as a Lombardy poplar, but leaves sent me by the late Prof. Fisher show that it was 

 P. serotina. The approximate measurements of the trunk were given as follows : 

 length 55 ft., girth 16 ft. at twelve feet from base, timber contents 1056 cubic feet, 

 weight about 20 tons. The removal of this tree by a traction engine, aided by 

 several horses, took several days. 



Mr. A. B. Jackson measured in 191 2 a tree growing in a dell by the stream 

 near the old church at Albury, Sussex, which he could not make less than 150 ft. 

 high, though on account of its situation it is difficult to measure accurately ; its girth 

 was 15 ft. 3 in. 



At Shalford House, near Guildford, the property of Col. H. H. Godwin-Austen, 

 F.R.S., there stands in a damp meadow an immense tree of this species, which in 

 191 1 measured about no ft. high by 23 ft. in girth. Its upper branches were much 

 damaged by a violent storm some years ago ; and I am informed by its owner, who 

 has a good photograph of it, that it was formerly at least twenty-five feet higher. It 

 forks first at about ten feet up, and gives off very large branches at about twenty feet, 

 which spread to a width of thirty-seven paces. This tree is known to have been 



' Cf. D. Hill, in Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc. xiv. 133 (1911). 



