352 THE LIME TREE. 
tion of silex, it is of advantage to mix a quantity of sharp 
sand with the soil. After the third year’s produce a healthy 
stool will furnish from sixty to seventy plants yearly. The 
plants on their removal are generally about two feet high ; 
they should be transplanted into nursery lines about two and 
a half feet apart, and the plants about fifteen inches asunder. 
Having stood two years in lines, they are usually six feet 
high, and fit for being finally planted out. But the lime 
admits of being grown in the nursery to a much greater size, 
and transplanted in safety, provided it is removed every 
second year, which has the effect of preserving its roots in a 
fibrous or bushy state; as it advances in size the space in the 
nursery lines should be increased, in order to preserve the 
proportion of the plant, and when such are finally removed 
they command an immediate effect. 
Not only is the tree adapted for the avenue, the lawn, or 
park scenery, but it forms a thicket in the belt or screen fence, 
where it is frequently serviceable to an agriculturist. It admits 
of being frequently pruned, and although destitute of foliage 
in winter, it becomes close and twiggy. The ordinary progress 
of the tree in rich, sheltered soil is about two feet yearly in 
height for the first fifteen or twenty years, after which its 
progress is greatest, where it has space, in adding diameter to 
the trunk, and expanse to the lateral branches. The British 
specimens of the tree seldom exceed the height of eighty feet, 
and in open situations it maintains nearly the same diameter 
in the spread of its branches, from the surface upwards to a 
great height. 
Of the recorded trees of this species, perhaps the largest is 
that which has been beautifully portrayed by Mr. Strutt. 
It stands at Moorpark, in Hertfordshire. Nineteen large 
branches, six or eight feet in girth, strike out horizontally 
from sixty-five to seventy feet in length, and these support 
three or four upright limbs. The tree is in full vigour, and 
its branches droop down and root on the ground. The trunk 
girths upwards of twenty-three feet ; the head is 122 feet in 
diameter, and nearly 100 feet high; and the tree contains 
