REPTON'S PLEA FOR THE IVY ON TREES, 



69 



REPTONS PLEA FOR 



Prejudice against the most beautiful evergreen 

 climber of the northern world is so common that 

 Repton's defence of it is worth reading, and his 

 pleading is full of good sense : — 



" Ivy is not only less injurious to trees than it 

 is generally deemed, but that it is often beneficial, 

 and its growth deserves to be encouraged rather 

 than checked, as is too often practised. I have been 

 led to adopt this opinion during the last two or three 

 years, from having observed the timber in some very 

 old parks and woods (as at Stoneleigh Abbey, War- 

 wickshire, Langley in Nottinghamshire, and some 

 others) where the Ivy had not been cut off, and 

 where the timber was in greater perfection than at 

 other places in the same neighbourhoods where the 

 Ivy had been destroyed. 



" During the winter of 1 808 and 1 809, the con- 

 trast betwixt the scenery of different places with and 

 without Ivy was so striking, that I was led to collect 

 facts in support of the opinion so opposite to the 

 theory of those who consider Ivy as a destroyer. 



" Linnaeus affirms that ' Ivy does no injury to 

 buildings,' and his observation respecting Ivy on 

 buildings confirms mine respecting Ivy on trees ; 

 that although it may in a few cases be injurious, it 

 is oftener beneficial ; and therefore I hope it will 

 not be deemed presumptuous in me to say, after 

 Linnasus, and in his words, that ' it does no injury 

 to ' trees. It is a fact, that of trees covered with Ivy 

 there are apparently more sickly than sound ones. 

 But there are many reasons to be assigned for this 

 appearance : First, the Ivy in winter renders the 

 trees more conspicuous, and few people who see 

 dead branches proceeding from such trees examine 

 whether there may not be other trees near them 

 equally decayed. Secondly, because a decaying or 

 even a dead tree often serves to support Ivy, it is 

 too often hastily supposed that Ivy is the cause of 

 its death or decay. And thirdly, it is the property of 

 Ivy to attach itself to decaying trees in preference 

 to the more healthy ones ; and as such trees are of 

 less value, they are often left after their neighbours 

 have been cut down and sold. This will alone 

 account for the comparative difference in the num- 

 ber of sound and unsound trees supporting Ivy. 

 But if a single instance be produced of a healthy tree 

 covered with Ivy near another tree not so healthy 

 without Ivy, this alone would lead us to pause before 

 we cut the Ivy from the tree, 'lest,' as Evelyn asserts, 

 ' the tree may be killed by the sudden exposure to 

 unaccustomed cold.' Instead of a single instance, I 

 could transcribe from my minutes examples of every 

 kind of tree compared with others ot the same kind 

 near it, and could confirm my facts by sketches taken 

 in various parts of the kingdom ; but I shall only 



THE IVY ON TREES. 



subjoin a few specimens of such facts as have in- 

 duced me to take up an opinion on the subject. 



"Facts. — No. 1. At Twickenham Park are 

 two rows of very large Cedars ; two are profusely 

 covered with Ivy, and a nurseryman proposed cut- 

 ting its roots to preserve the trees, till I showed him 

 that these two were the largest trees and that the 

 Ivy seemed coeval with the Cedars themselves, which 

 they had not in the least injured. No. 2. At Blick- 

 ling, in Norfolk, are two very large Fir trees ; the 

 biggest is covered with Ivy, the other is a bare pole 

 and not so large, though evidently of the same date, 

 and both equally healthy. But the gardener could 

 not be convinced, and only replied by an answer 

 often made, viz., that the tree might perhaps have 

 been still larger if it had not been loaded with Ivy. 

 No. 3. The trees on Lord Hardwicke's estate at 

 Wimpole furnish very striking effects of Ivy ; in 

 the pleasure ground east of the house the Ivy trees 

 in the grove are most decidedly the tallest, largest, 

 and most healthy. No. 4. A large Ash very near the 

 road in Arrington is a curious example of preju- 

 dice ; it is a forked tree, one half naked, the other 

 has been loaded with Ivy ; the naked side shows 

 symptoms of decay, the other is quite healthy ; but 

 with an idea (I suppose) of saving the tree, the Ivy 

 has been recently cut off, and was hanging in vast 

 masses, with stems of great bulk loosened from the 

 tree without leaving any indenture in the bark of the 

 tree. No. 5. At Stoneleigh Abbey the timber is 

 generally of prodigious size, some Oaks measuring 

 20 feet round at 5 feet from the ground ; many are 

 richly covered with Ivy ; but I could not perceive 

 any difference between those and the more naked 

 trees, except that they appeared more luxuriant in 

 the extremity of their branches. No. 6. At Langold, 

 in Yorkshire, the trees are not generally so large as 

 those at Stoneleigh ; but the two places agree in the 

 Ivy not having been so much destroyed as is gene- 

 rally the case ; and, both in examining the trees near 

 each other and those growing from the same root, 

 I was confirmed in my opinion. No. 7. In a lane 

 betwixt Hertford and Hatfield there are many very 

 large old Thorns in the paling of Hatfield Park so 

 covered with Ivy, that in the winter of 1808 I 

 thought it an evergreen hedge, and the sprays of 

 the thorns were hardly visible ; yet when compared 

 with a few Thorns in the same lane, they appeared 

 to be equally vigorous. Last summer I was sur- 

 prised to miss the Ivy, till I perceived that the foli- 

 age of the Thorns had so entirely covered it that 

 the Ivy was only a secondary object in Nature's plan 

 of decoration, and seemed humbly to retire into the 

 shade of more luxuriant ornament, to come forward 

 again, as I have lately seen it this last winter when 



