10 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



extremely lofty and exposed spot, and fulfils in every particular 



the description in Scott's " Lady of the Lake " :— 



Moored in the rifted rock, 



Proof to the tempest's shock, 



Firmer he roots him, the ruder it blow. 



This gnarled and starved specimen is 12 feet in circumference 

 a little way above the rock, and once contained about 60 cubic 

 feet. Not far from it is another ancient example, where the soil 

 consists of a thin sod through which the rocks project on all 

 sides, which girths 22 feet 5 feet up. Another close by girths 

 12 feet, and contained, before it lost some of its limbs, about 

 270 cubic feet of good timber. Another tree on the same poor 

 ground contained 170 cubic feet in the trunk, and about 50 feet 

 in the boughs. Growing under the same conditions are many 

 Birch, Ash, Hollies, Beech, Yews, &c, and throughout Wharn- 

 cliffe Wood there are numbers of Oaks of various sizes growing 

 on the rock ; and these trees, as can be seen, have produced a 

 second and third crop of timber from the same stools. These 

 examples are mentioned to show under what poor conditions as 

 regards soil timber-trees will thrive, for, unless the Wharncliffe 

 trees were there to speak for themselves, I have no doubt that 

 even some practical foresters would hardly believe that they 

 could grow under such conditions. On the same rocks, about 

 1,000 feet above the sea, on a peaty sod two or three inches deep, 

 we have the Corsican Pine (Pinus Laricio) growing beautifully, 

 and beating the Larch and Scotch Fir. 



Not less remarkable than the size of the trees produced in 

 poor soils is the variety of poor soils in which the same species 

 will thrive. At Lord Salisbury's, at Hatfield, I was much struck 

 by the great size of the Oaks, Limes, Yews, and the usual forest- 

 trees, when noticing at the same time in the kitchen-garden 

 close by that the pure chalk was turned up everywhere at a 

 spade's depth. Equally striking are both the young and old 

 plantations on the deep poor sandstone in some parts of Notting- 

 hamshire. In Thoresby Park the sandstone is of great depth, 

 and the surface soil is so poor that only high culture keeps it up 

 to the mark. Yet the size and health of both young and old 

 trees there are remarkable, though, according to Professor 

 McConnell, Sherwood Forest, with its great Oak-trees, lies on a 

 member of the Upper New Red Sandstone, where the surface soil 



