370 



ARBOIIETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART III^ 



gardening it is well adapted, from the patience with which it bears the knife 

 or the shears. In some of the public gardens of recreation on the Continent, 

 and especially in those in the neighbourhood of Paris and Amsterdam, there 

 are very imposing colonnades, arcades, walls, pyramids, and other architec- 

 tural-looking masses, formed of this tree. 



Soil and Situation. A deep and rather light soil is recommended for the 

 lime tree by Du Hamel {Traite des Arbres) ; but the largest trees are gene- 

 rally found in a good loamy soil. In Lithuania, where the tree is more 

 abundant, and of a larger size, than it is either in Russia or Poland, the soil, 

 as we particularly remarked about Kowno, when in that country in 1813, is 

 rather a clayey loam than a sandy one. This agrees with an observation of 

 Du Hamel, in another of his works {Exploitation des Bois), that the lime 

 tree gets to a prodigious size in an argillaceous soil inclining somewhat to 

 sand, and rather moist. In dry situations, the tree never attains a large size, 

 and it loses its leaves earlier than any other tree. Being a tree of the plains, 

 rather than of the mountains, it does not appear suitable for exposed sur- 

 faces : but it requires a pure air rather than otherwise ; for, though it is found 

 in towns on the Continent, and sparingly so in Britain, the smoke of mineral 

 coal seems more injarious to it than it is to the platanus, the elm, or some 

 other trees. 



Pro'pagation and Culture. It is seldom propagated otherwise^than by layers, 

 which are made, in the nurseries, in autumn and winter, and which become 

 rooted, so as to admit of being taken olF, in a year. The tree, in Britain at 

 least, appears seldom to ripen its seeds ; but Evelyn states that he received 

 many of these from Holland, and that plants may be raised from them j 

 though, he says, with better success from suckers, Du Hamel says that the 

 lime tree may be raised from seeds, which ought to be sown immediately 

 after being gathered ; because, if they are preserved dry till the following 

 spring, they will often not come up till the second year. If, however, the 

 seeds are mixed with sand, or with soil, not too dry, and kept in that state till 

 the following spring, they will generally come up the first year. Owing to 

 the slowness of the growth of plants raised from seeds, Du Hamel states, 

 the French gardeners, when they want a supply of young lime trees, cut 

 over an old one close by the surface of the ground, which soon sends up a 

 great number of shoots : among these they throw in a quantity of soil, which 

 they allow to remain one, or two, or three years j after which they find the 

 shoots well rooted, and of a sufficient height and strength to be planted at 

 once where they are finally to remain. This mode is sltU practised in France 

 and Belgium, both with the lime and the elm. (See Agremens de la Cam- 

 pagne, liv. ii.) We have seen the plants, or shoots, 15 ft. or 20 ft, high, 

 with very few roots when they were fii-st taken off : but all the branches 

 being cut off close to the stems, and the stems shortened to 6 ft. or 7 ft.,, 

 and the roots also pruned, they are planted, and seldom fail to growj 

 all the young shoots produced the first season after planting being re- 

 moved, except one to serve as a leader. The lime tree bears trans- 

 planting when of a considerable size; but, when it is grown in the nurseries 

 for this purpose, it ought always to be taken up and replanted every two 

 or three years. A tree which has stood some years without being removed 

 should always have the roots cut round, at "s ft. or 4 ft. from the stem, 

 a year before removal, for the purpose of stunting the growth, both of the 

 head and roots, and of forming smaller roots and fibi-es, Evelyn mentions 

 some very large lime trees which the prince elector took out of his forests 

 at Heidelberg, to a steep hill " exceedingly exposed to the heat of the sun, 

 and that in the heat of summer. They grow behind that strong tower on the 

 soufh-west and most torrid part of the eminence, being a dry, reddish, 

 barren earth ; yet do they prosper rarely well : but the heads were cut oflF, 

 and the pits into which tlaey were transplanted were (by the industry and di- 

 rection of Monsieur De Son, a Frenchman, and an admirable mechanic, who 

 himself related it to me) filled with a composition of earth and cow-dung, 



