358 



FLORA AND SYLVA. 



Culture and 

 Increase. 



Perfectly hardy through- 

 out the south of Britain, 

 and even in Scotland when 

 sheltered or upon walls, its growth is at 

 first rapid when under the best condi- 

 tions, but it is long in reaching maturity 

 and even the oldest plants inEurope have 

 yet to attain their maximum growth. It 

 endures cold, heat, and drought, with 

 equal indifference, doing best in rich 

 free ground with a dry subsoil and suffer- 

 ing in growth and appearancewhen the 

 soil is heavy and wet. Free from disease 

 and from insectattack it is easily grown, 

 and transplants well even when of con- 

 siderable size. The best plants are raised 

 from seed, which grows readily when 

 fresh but loses its vitality in a fewmonths ; 

 cuttings are often slow to root though 

 giving fair results when of ripe or near- 

 ly ripened wood, set in sandy soil un- 

 der glass during summer and autumn ; 

 grafted shoots start as freely as that of 

 any Apple. This ease of grafting makes 

 it a simple matter to secure fertile trees 

 by inserting both sexes upon one stock; 

 many such trees now exist in Europe 

 which seed regularly and abundantly. 

 Fruiting trees are always rare amongst 

 those raised from seed, and are several 

 years longer than the male in reaching 

 flowering size, but even amongst un- 

 flowered seedlings it is easy to distin- 

 guish the females with certainty by the 

 fact that in autumn they keep their leaves 

 several weeks longer than the male trees. 

 The Chinese are said to raise large and 

 fertile trees rapidly by sowing several 

 trees in a cluster and as they grow so 

 grafting them together by approach as 

 to quickly make one large tree. 



Spite of their hardiness fine Gink- 

 goes are not common in English parks 

 and gardens. That shown in the engrav- 

 ing is afinely-grown tree atPanshanger, 

 in Hertfordshire. It is growing in light 

 black loam upon a gravel subsoil, and 

 is about 70 feet high and half as much 

 across, and is said to be one of the oldest 

 of the kind in the country. Its girth is 

 10 feet at one foot from the ground, or 

 about the same as a fine tree in the gar- 

 dens at Frogmore. The Frogmore tree 

 reaches 7 8 feet in height with a spread 

 of 45 feet, fine in outline, and beautiful 

 in colour this autumn; it grows in moist 

 ground near water. The tallest Maiden- 

 hair Tree in Britain would seem to be at 

 Melbury House near Dorchester, where 

 it exceeds 80 feet in height, but its stem 

 is slighter than those just cited. Dorset- 

 shire possesses a second fine tree at 

 Sherborne Castle, growing upon loamy 

 clay to a height of nearly 70 feet and 

 measuring 9 feet at a yard from the soil. 

 Like the tree at Panshanger, this breaks 

 into two great limbs when well above 

 the ground. In the gardens at Longleat 

 is also a fine tree, 7 1 feet high, 9^ feet 

 round the trunk at a foot from the 

 ground, with a spread of 45 feet; the 

 tree is in fine health, thriving upon stiff 

 clay. These figures compare well with 

 the growth of the oldest tree inEurope, 

 that planted at Utrecht about 1730. 

 Though in perfect health this tree is now 

 only 83 feet high and less than 10 feet 

 in girth, so that much younger trees in 

 the south of England have already dis- 

 tanced this old tree imported by the 

 Dutch. 



With such evidence it is not difficult 



