Chapter II: Part 2

There is one characteristic of the chestnut which, while it adds much to the beauty of the grove, certainly detracts from the value of the timber. Just as one may see in a Gothic cloister how the architect, wearying of straight columns, introduces here and there a twisted one, so the trunk of the chestnut often grows in a regularly spiral manner.

Economically and commercially, the timber of Spanish chestnut, up to a certain age, is no whit inferior to that of the oak--superior, indeed, in its young stages, owing to its producing less sap wood. Chestnut palings, gates, etc., are the most durable that can be made of any British-grown wood. In 1907 Lord Ducie exhibited at the Gloucestershire Agricultural Show some fencing posts made from chestnuts which he planted in 1855 and felled in 1885. These posts remained perfectly sound after exposure to wind and weather for two and twenty years.

Not only in durability, but in other qualities, the timber of chestnut is fully equal to that of oak, which it closely resembles; and, as it grows much faster and to a larger size than the oak, it would soon drive its rival out of the market, but for its greater liability to one grave defect, namely, "ring-shake." This is the name given to a splitting of the wood along one of the concentric annual rings, thereby ruining the log for the sawing of planks. The cause of this internal rupture is obscure, but the injury takes place in chestnuts over seventy years of age more commonly than in any other tree, and, as it cannot be detected until the tree is felled, merchants are very shy of offering for a standing lot.

As a coppice tree, the Spanish chestnut has no equal in this country; the rotation of the crop is far shorter than that of oak, the poles are more durable, and a steady demand has been created for an admirable form of paling made up of split chestnut staves, set closely together upright and bound with wire. This kind of fence, however, ought not to be used in any fox-hunting country, for high-couraged hounds, attempting to climb it, get impaled on the sharp tops and frightfully injured.

"Chestnut," it is well known, is uncomplimentary slang for a worn-out anecdote. They told me in Philadelphia that the phrase had its source in a theatre in Walnut Street, one of the principal thoroughfares of that city. This theatre was built in rivalry of an older one in Chestnut Street: its _répertoire_ lacked originality, and patrons of the other house, when they recognised jokes they had heard and situations they had seen there, used to hail the players with the cry--"A chestnut! a chestnut!" And this explanation may serve as well as another. In this connection I may be permitted to put on record a _bon mot_ by a well-known member of the present Radical Government. We had been dining, a small party, in the House of Commons, shortly after the late Sir M. Grant Duff had published the third volume of his reminiscences, which, it may be remembered, contained many anecdotes not told for the first time. One of the ladies of our party expressed a wish to see Westminster Hall, and, having been conducted thither, asked me what the fine roof was made of. "It is of oak," I replied; "some people used to think it was of chestnuts, but I don't suppose there were enough chestnuts in England to furnish a roof like that in the reign of Richard." "No," observed Mr. ----, "Grant Duff had not published his third volume!"

The Ash

"Oh it's hame and it's hame, at hame I fain would be,
Hame, lads, hame in the north countrie;
Oh the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,
They a' nourish best in the north countrie."

The bard who was responsible for this ancient jingle assigned that precedence to the oak which common sentiment has always accorded to it as the monarch of British woodland. Economically, also, the oak held the first place so long as Britannia ruled the waves from wooden walls, but in this ironclad era our Admiralty has little use for oak timber, and there is now no broad-leaved or "hardwood" tree that can be cultivated so profitably as the ash. Indeed it is hardly doubtful that this is the only species of tree, willows, poplars and certain conifers excepted, which a young man may plant with reasonable expectation of receiving any pecuniary profit during his lifetime. The properties which ensure to the ash (_Fraxinus excelsior_) this superiority to all rivals are its hardihood, the matchless quality of its timber for many purposes, and its market value from a very early age.

First, as to its hardihood. No British tree, not even the oak, is so wary of starting into growth before all risk of late spring frost is past. Tennyson, the very Virgil among British bards for keen observation of nature, has embalmed this characteristic in a beautiful passage in _The Princess_:

Why lingereth she to clothe herself in love?
Delaying, as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself when all the woods are green.

Once, and once only, do I remember the prudent ash to have been caught, namely, in 1897, when after a month of deceptive warmth, the mercury fell to 10° Fahrenheit on the 22nd May. Twenty-two degrees of frost within a month of the summer solstice! No wonder the young ash foliage, which had been lured into precocious growth, was shrivelled and blackened as by fire. And that, not only in the north, but in Herts and Hants, as I had occasion to note when trout-fishing in these southern counties. Even the beech and hawthorn fared no better, but their leaves were seared brown instead of black.

Then as to wind exposure, what tree can compare with the ash for length and strength of anchorage against the gale? It is astonishing to what distance it sends its tough roots, whether they run through free soil or wind themselves into the crevices of limestone rock. This far-ranging habit renders it the worst of all neighbours to a garden, and no ash tree should be suffered to grow within fifty yards of ground where herbs or fruit are cultivated.

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For toughness and strength the timber of ash has no equal, even among foreign woods; and it is always in request at a good price for waggon-building, implement-making, and other purposes. Moreover, British ash, properly grown, is more highly esteemed than ash imported from other countries. Unfortunately, owing to our neglect of systematic and economic forestry, as distinct from arboriculture and the management of game covert, ash is very seldom to be seen grown under proper conditions in the United Kingdom. It should be grown in woods sufficiently close to draw the stems up to such a height as will ensure a good length of clean bole. Standing in the open or in hedgerows, it sends out huge side branches which destroy the quality of the timber.

In consequence of our misuse of this tree, which ought to be the most valuable of all assets to British forestry, good ash timber has become exceedingly scarce; although undoubtedly there are an immense number of excellent stems in most parts of the country, which, if landowners generally understood their own interest and the true welfare of their woodland, would be felled and sold before they reached an unmanageable size.

In one respect the ash possesses a merit superior to any other hardwood tree, except, as aforesaid, willow and poplar, in that it reaches commercial maturity soonest. Grown under forest conditions in good, well-drained soil, it is most fit for the market at from fifty to seventy years of age. But, as it is readily saleable from twenty years old upwards, an ash plantation may be reckoned on bringing in some revenue from thinnings long before the main crop is ripe for the axe. For instance, I was lately offered a very good price for ash poles averaging nine inches in diameter for the manufacture of billiard cues. The regular supply is drawn from Switzerland; but could most easily be furnished from British woodland if the necessary care were bestowed upon the saplings. The trees should not be allowed to stand after attaining eighty years of growth; for the timber, even if it continued sound, hardens after that age, and, losing much of its characteristic elasticity, does not command such a good price.

Homer says that the spear of Achilles had an ashen shaft, and all true Scots should hold the ash in special honour, forasmuch as of yore it furnished staves for their national weapon, the pike. It was from the long ashen pike-shafts of Randolph Moray's handful of Scots that de Clifford's cavalry recoiled on the Eve of St. John, 1314, after thrice attempting to break that bristling fence of steel; it was through the staunchness of his pikemen that next day, on the slopes of Bannockburn, Edward Bruce was able to bear the brunt of attack by the English columns, hurl them into unutterable ruin among the Milton bogs, and so set seal, once for all, to Scottish independence and freedom.

It was probably owing to the high value that the Scots had learnt to set upon ash timber, both for military and domestic use, that this tree was more commonly planted than any other in compliance with the statute of James II. (fourteenth Parliament, cap. 80), requiring every landowner to cause his tenants to plant and maintain trees in number proportioned to the extent of their holdings. This was in 1424; in 1573 it was re-enacted, along with "sindrie louabil and gud Acts," by 6 James vi. c. 84; whereof the effect may still be traced in the landscape of many parts of Scotland in the shape of old ash trees standing round farmhouses and other homesteads. Often, where two or more farms have been thrown into one, the trees remain long after the disused buildings have been removed.

Belief in the medicinal virtues of the ash was very general in early times, probably derived from the Orient, where the manna ash (_F. ornus_) abounds. Yet Pliny, who recognised the difference between the two species, not only recommended extract of the common ash as a draught to cure snake-bites and as superior to any other remedy when applied to ulcers, but solemnly affirms that he has himself proved that if ash leaves are laid in a circle round a snake and a fire, the snake will crawl into the fire rather than touch the leaves. Even sage John Evelyn recommended ash extract to cure deafness, toothache and other ailments, and, later still, Gilbert White of Selborne describes the superstitious practice of passing sickly children through the stems of ash-trees, split for that purpose, in the belief that, if the clefts grew together again after the wedges were removed, the patients would recover. For household purposes, ash provides excellent firewood, which burns as well green as dry.

The tallest ash measured by Mr. H. J. Elwes in 1907, stood 146 feet high, and was 12 feet 7 inches in girth 5 feet from the ground. This fine tree is growing with many others of about equal height in Lord Darnley's park at Cobham, in Kent. The tallest ash recorded in Scotland was one at Mount Stuart, in the Island of Bute, stated to have been 134 feet high in 1879; but this has now disappeared. The loftiest certified by Messrs. Elwes and Henry as still standing is a great tree at Dalswinton, in Dumfriesshire, which, in 1904, stood 110 feet high, with a girth of only 8 feet 3 inches. Sir Archibald Buchan-Hepburn, however, claims to have one at Smeaton Hepburn measuring 124 feet in height and 11 feet in girth in 1908.

Weeping ashes have rather gone out of vogue, but they are very pretty things if the sport is grafted on a sufficiently high stem and the stock be not suffered to outgrow the graft, as it will do if not attended to. By far the most successful example of this kind of freak tree is the one at Elvaston Castle, near Derby, 98 feet high with branches hanging to a length of 60 or 70 feet, a truly remarkable object, and beautiful withal, as may be seen from the fine plate in Messrs. Elwes and Henry's book. Although its requirement of a deep, cool and generous soil render the ash unsuitable for London conditions, yet there are a few handsome weeping ashes in that city, notably one at the south-west corner of Bedford Square.

Like all our indigenous trees, the ash has impressed itself upon our place-names. Ashby, Ashton, Ashridge, Ascot--the map of England is peppered freely with such names; that of Scotland more sparsely, owing to the preponderance of Gaelic in the topography. The Gael employed several forms of his name for the ash, namely, _fuinnse_, _fuinnsean_, and _fuinnseog_ (pronounced funsha, funshan, and funshog), whence many names in southern and western Ireland such as Funcheon, a river in Cork, Funshin, and Funshinagh several times in Connaught. But the initial consonant soon dropped off, and in northern Ireland and among the Scottish Gaels the word became _uinnse_ (inshy) preserved in the name Inshaw Hill (Wigtownshire), Killyminshaw (Dumfriesshire), etc.; or _uinnseog_ (inshog), recognisable in Inshock (Forfar), Inshaig (Argyll), Inshog (Nairn), Drumnaminshoch and Knockninshock (Kirkcudbright). The plural _uinnsean_ (inshan) has assumed a very grotesque form in Wigtownshire, where there are two farms twenty miles apart named Inshanks.

Liability to disease is an important consideration in regard to forest trees, and the ash has the merit of being remarkably free from ailments. The worst malady from which it is liable to suffer seriously is known as ash canker, whereby the timber is rendered worthless except for firing. Happily it does not seem very contagious; for I have known badly cankered trees standing for twenty years and more without imparting the disease to their healthy neighbours. The late Dr. Masters attributed the mischief to the work of the larva of a small moth (_Tinea curtisella_). That creature may start the injury, but it is certainly taken up and aggravated by the fungoid organism _Nectria ditissima_. Although, as aforesaid, the disease does not appear to be readily communicable to healthy trees, it is not advisable to leave the unsightly invalids standing. The sooner they are cut down and burnt the better.

There are between fifty and sixty exotic species of ash, but among them there is only one known to me as specially desirable for ornamental planting, namely, the Manna Ash (_Fraxinus ornus_), producing a profusion of creamy-white plumes of blossom in June. This pretty tree is the source of the manna of commerce, a sweet and mildly laxative substance obtained by tapping the stem in late summer and allowing the sap which flows from the wound to coagulate.

Manna of various sorts is collected from many different kinds of plant; that which supported the Israelites in the desert is supposed to have been an exudation from the tamarisk; but Sicilian manna is the only kind that is recognised as an article of European trade. In Sicily the manna ash is planted in _frassinetti_ or ash-yards, grown for eight years and regularly tapped, till the main stem is exhausted, when it is cut down, and a fresh growth is allowed to spring from the root. The active principle in manna is mannite, a hexatomic alcohol, chemically expressed as C_{6}H_{8}(OH)_{6}. The manna ash is not often seen in this country; those specimens which are of any size are invariably grafted plants; but a stock is easily raised from seed, which Continental nurserymen readily supply. In Dalmatia and Montenegro, where this tree abounds, drivers stick the flowers thereof in the harness of their horses to keep off flies, which dislike the peculiar odour. A Chinese species (_F. mariesii_) is near of kin to _F. ornus_, and is said to bear flowers of superior beauty to that tree; but of this I can only write from hearsay.

The Linden Tree or Lime

When we speak of a lime tree we conform to a corrupt usage, for the right English name is "line" or "linden tree," linden being the adjectival form of the Anglo-Saxon "lind," just as "asp" and "oak" give the adjectives "aspen" and "oaken." The late Professor Skeat, foremost authority in English etymology, observed that "the change from 'line' to 'lime' does not seem to be older than about A.D. 1700"; but he overlooked the use of the modern form by John Evelyn, who, in his _Sylva_ (1664), writes always of "the lime tree or linden," showing that the change had taken place between his day and Shakespeare's.

_Prospero._ ... Say, my spirit,
How fares the King and his?

_Ariel._ Confin'd together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners
In the line grove which weather-fends your cell.
(_Tempest_, Act v. sc. 1.)

The root meaning of the word is "smooth," referring to the texture of the timber, which caused it of old to be in great request for making shields, so that in Anglo-Saxon _lind_ meant a shield, as well as being the name of the tree.

It is strange that Tennyson, so sensitive to delicacy of sound, should have used the modern form in his frequent mention of the tree. Only one instance comes to mind of his preferring the more musical dissyllable. When Amphion set the forest dancing--

The _Linden_ broke her ranks and rent
The woodbine wreaths that bind her,
And down the middle--buzz! she went,
With all her bees behind her.

The limes form a somewhat perplexing family, inasmuch as, of the score or so of species recognised by botanists, several cannot be reputed as more than hybrids or sports. The only species claimed as indigenous to Britain is the small-leaved lime (_Tilia cordata_), and even about this botanists are not of a certain mind. For instance, the joint authors of _The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_ have formed different opinions, Dr. Henry considering it to be "a native of England, ranging from Cumberland southward," while Mr. Elwes fails to reconcile this with the facts that no fossil remains of this tree have been identified in the British Isles, and that he has never been able to find, or to find anybody else who has found, a self-sown seedling.

There are many fine specimens of the small-leaved lime in England, ranging from 80 to 110 feet high; but it has never been known to attain the dimensions of the common lime (_T. europæa_), which, although it is an exotic species, has made itself thoroughly at home between the Straits of Dover and the Moray Firth, and is the tree which those who do not scrupulously discriminate regard as _the_ lime tree _par excellence_.

It would require much space to mention all the notable limes in our country, for they were very extensively planted 200 or 300 years ago, and, being long-lived, many of them have grown to great size. Mr. Elwes gives the palm to the lime grove at Ashridge, Lord Brownlow's fine park in Hertfordshire. These trees were planted in 1660, and average 120 feet in height and 10 feet in girth. They have been grown in a close row, only 12 to 15 feet apart, and have thereby escaped the defects to which limes are so prone as ornamental trees--namely, spreading to ungainly breadth instead of rising to height, and covering their trunks with an unsightly mass of brush.

At Knole Park, in Kent, advantage has been taken of this spreading habit to allow the formation of a very remarkable grove. The parent tree was described by Loudon as covering a quarter of an acre in 1820; the boughs have drooped so as to root themselves, and have risen again, forming trees 80 and 90 feet high, which in their turn have repeated the process, forming a second circle of trees 20 to 40 feet high, and these again are engaged in forming a third concentric circle, the total diameter of the grove, all connected with the central stem, being 36 yards. The great lime at Gordon Castle, known as the Duchess's Tree, has behaved in a similar way; but, as the supplementary growths have not been trained into trees as at Knole, the whole forms a dense thicket, impenetrable save where a passage has been kept clear to the interior. A tree of this description covers almost enough ground, if not for a small holding, at least for an allotment, for the total circumference of this mass of branches is 480 feet or 160 yards.

It is as an avenue tree that the lime is seen at its best, disputing pre-eminence for that purpose with the beech. Moreover, although the beech must be accounted the more beautiful tree, its rival has advantage over it in the delicious fragrance of its blossom, which is produced in great profusion, powerfully attractive to bees. Strange to say, although the fragrant flowers are of a pale yellowish, greenish white, the honey extracted from them is deep brown, darker than heather honey, and of inferior flavour.

Fine avenues of limes are innumerable in Britain, many of them being over 200 years old. At Newhouse Park, Devon, Mr. Elwes describes a remarkable one, which was planted about 200 years ago as an approach to a house which never was built. The rows are only 20 feet apart, and the trees, which are only 10 feet apart in the rows, have risen to an immense height, averaging over 120 feet.

Among other notable lime avenues may be noted those at Stratton Park, Hants (Lord Northbrook's); Cassiobury, Herts (Lord Essex's), said to have been planted by Le Notre, the designer of the gardens at Versailles; at Braxted Park, Essex (Mr. Du Cane's), composed of three rows on each side; at Wollaton Hall, Notts, and Birdsall, Yorks (both places belonging to Lord Middleton). In all these avenues the trees range from 120 to 130 feet high; but none can compete in length with an avenue planted at Clumber by the Duke of Newcastle in 1840, which is only 200 yards short of two miles long. Unfortunately, these trees were planted far too wide apart in the rows, 31 feet from tree to tree, and, having been afterwards neglected in the matter of training, have squandered their luxuriance in bushy growth. To form a fine avenue timely pruning is indispensable.

The lime, being more tolerant than the beech of drought, parching heat and a smoky atmosphere, thrives vigorously in towns of moderate size, and also in large cities where the chief fuel is not coal. The well-known thoroughfare, Unter-den-Linden, in Berlin, corresponds to the Mall in London. I have not identified the species with which it is planted; certainly of late years they have been planting in Berlin a natural hybrid known as the smooth-leaved lime (_T. euchlora_), which has the merit of keeping its glossy foliage later in autumn than the common lime. The trees in Unter-den-Linden are remarkable neither for size nor vigour, but they provide grateful shade and verdure in summer.

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The atmosphere of Berlin is certainly not so hurtful to tree growth as that of London, where poplars, planes, ailanthus, and acacia (_Robinia_) are practically the only forest trees that can do battle successfully with the parching heat and stifling fogs of that city; conditions which the limes that used to stand in the Mall resented by casting their foliage in disgust before August was sped. The limes in the Cathedral close of Winchester afford an example of felicitous association of foliage with noble architecture. Perhaps there is a remembrance of them in Tennyson's _Gardeners' Daughter_:--

Over many a range
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers,
Across a hazy glimmer of the west,
Reveal'd their shining windows.

The smooth white timber of lime was once in much more request than it is now. Pliny praises it as worm-proof and useful, describing how the inner bark was woven into ropes, as it now is into bast for the mats with which gardeners protect their frames from frost. These mats are chiefly made in and exported from Russia. Lime timber, being less liable to split than other woods, was the favourite material for wood-carving; indeed, Evelyn writes of it as being used exclusively in their work:--

"Because of its colour and easy working, and that it is not subject
to split, architects make with it models for their designed
buildings; and the carvers in wood use it, not only for small
figures, but for large statues and entire histories in bass and
high relieve; witness, beside several more, the festoons,
fruitages, and other sculptures of admirable invention and
performance to be seen about the choir of St. Paul's and other
churches, Royal Palaces, and noble houses in city and country; all
of them the works and invention of our Lysippus, Mr. [Grinling]
Gibbons, comparable, and for aught appears equal, to anything of
the antients. Having had the honour (for so I account it) to be the
first who recommended this great artist to His Majesty Charles II.,
I mention it on this occasion with much satisfaction."

It is owing to the neglect of British planters and the consequent irregularity of the home timber trade that this fine timber has been ousted from its former pre-eminence by imports of other kinds.

In writing of the common lime, I have used the scientific name, _Tilia europæa_ as conferred on it by Linnæus, rather than the more recent title of _T. vulgaris_. There seems a special reason for retaining the old name, inasmuch as Linnæus considered his own family name was derived from the linden tree.

The Elms

It is a matter of doubtful argument how many species go to compose the genus Elm--_Ulmus_--owing to the uncertainty of distinguishing true permanent species from varieties and natural hybrids. Foremost botanists have differed widely on the question; for whereas Bentham and Hooker recognised in 1887 only two true species growing naturally in the United Kingdom, Elwes and Henry describe five native species, besides nine varieties of the wych elm, as many of the English elm, and no fewer than thirteen varieties of _Ulmus nitens_, a species hitherto classed as a form of the English elm.

The distribution of the elm family is somewhat peculiar, extending all the way from Japan, through Northern China and Europe to North America, but not crossing to the Western States; nor is any species to be found south of the temperate zone, except in the mountain ranges of Southern Mexico. Of all the cities of the New World, Boston reminds the British traveller more vividly of home scenes than any other, by reason of the massive English elms which enrich the landscape. Pity it is that we cannot return the compliment by planting the beautiful white elm (_Ulmus Americana_), the glory of Washington city, for it does not take kindly to our island climate.

The elm with which we are most familiar in the North is the wych elm (_U. montana_), easily to be distinguished from the English elm by the fact that it throws up no suckers from the root, whereas the English elm hardly ever ripens seed, and propagates itself entirely by suckers which it sends out as colonists to an astonishing distance--50 yards and more. There are exceedingly few authentic records of the English elm ripening seed in Great Britain; on the other hand, the wych elm sometimes produces a prodigious crop. In the spring of 1909 this tree presented a curious appearance. The foregoing summer had been a very warm one, stimulating the wych elm to such extraordinary efforts at reproduction that, before the leaves appeared, the trees seemed to be covered with fresh young foliage, which was really the crowded leaf-like seed vessels. In June these leaf-like membranes had become dry scales, each acting as parachute to a single seed, so that, under a hot sun and a high wind, the air was full of them--so full that they actually choked the eave-gutters of my house. Each of these little monoplanes carried the potentiality of a majestic forest tree; given a suitable resting-place, any one of these minute seeds might develop into an elm like those at Darnaway, in Morayshire, which in 1882 were 95 feet high, with clean boles up to 24 feet. So great was the exhaustion following upon the abnormal seed crop of 1909 that some of my elms were crippled by it, and two or three died outright.[9]

To produce well-shaped wych elms, timely pruning is essential, followed by close forest treatment, for no other tree spreads more wildly and wantonly, and unless means are taken to keep a single leader on each, the result will be very different from those lordly examples which stood, not many years ago, on the banks of the White Cart at Pollok, four of which were figured by Strutt in his _Sylva Britannica_ in 1824. The largest of these measured in that year 85 feet in height and 11 feet 10 inches in girth, and contained 669 cubic feet of timber. Two of this group were blown down in the great gale of 22nd December, 1894, and the remaining pair were felled in 1905, being respectively 90 and 96 feet high. The age of these giants was shown by the annual rings to be about 300 years.

The weeping elms which one sometimes sees in gardens is a variety which originated in a Perthshire nursery about one hundred years ago. It is very ornamental, though it never attains much height, being perfectly flat-topped. As it can only be propagated by grafts, a sharp lookout must be kept to prevent the stock outgrowing the scion.

The wych elm is indigenous over the whole of the northern part of Great Britain, the largest recorded being at Studley Royal, in Yorkshire--105 feet high and 23 feet in girth at 5 feet up in 1905. As an element of the primæval Scottish forest, the wych elm must have been held in high esteem, judging from the number of Gaelic place-names commemorating it. The old Gaelic name for it was _leam_, plural _leaman_ (pronounced "lam" and "lamman"). Ptolemy's _Leamanonius lacus_ is now Loch Lomond, the lake of elms, out of which flows the Leven, which is the more modern aspirated form _leamhan_ (pronounced "lavan"); and we find the same association of names in eastern Scotland, where the Lomond Hills overlook the town of Leven. The Lennox district was formerly written Levenax, which is the adjectival form _leamhnach_ (lavnah), an elm wood. The rivers Lune and Leven in Lancashire (Ptolemy's Alauna), the Leven in Cumberland, and the Laune at Killarney all seem to indicate the former existence of elm woods on their banks. In the name Carlaverock is probably preserved another derivative--_caer leamhraich_, the fort among the elms.

It was long supposed that the English elm (_U. campestris_) was not indigenous to England, seeing that it never propagates itself in these islands by seed. Its presence was explained by the convenient device of attributing its introduction to the Romans; but there is not a shred of evidence in support of this conjecture. The elm of Italy is quite a distinct species, according to Elwes and Henry, a fact with which Shakespeare, though familiar with "Warwickshire weeds" (as elms are called near Stratford-on-Avon), may not have been acquainted when he made Adriana plead with him she believed to be her husband:

Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine;
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.

The English elm, however, grows luxuriantly in Spain, and ripens seed abundantly there, the tradition being current that it was introduced from England to the Royal Park at Aranjuez when Philip II. was laying out that demesne. Dr. Henry, however, considers it not improbable that this tree is truly indigenous in Spain, and that it is certainly so in the southern counties of England, where, as aforesaid, it reproduces itself only by suckers. Other examples are not wanting of certain plants yielding to climatic conditions, by resorting to reproduction by suckers and ceasing to produce seed.

Perhaps the most striking display of the true English elm to be found anywhere is the magnificent quadruple avenue known as the Long Walk, at Windsor. Many of these are 120 feet high and 15 feet in girth. The avenue leads from the Castle gates to the statue in the park, a distance of two miles and three-quarters. Taller individual elms may be seen elsewhere, as in the grounds of King's College, Cambridge (130 feet), Boreham House, in Essex (132 feet), and Northampton Court, Gloucestershire (150 feet by 20 feet in girth). The last-named tree, by the way, may no longer be seen, for it was blown down in 1895, but there can be no doubt about its dimensions, which were accurately ascertained as it lay on the ground. It was probably the champion of that particular species in England; but it was inferior in bulk to the great elm which stood in the grounds of Magdalen College, Oxford, until it was blown down in April, 1911, pronounced by Mr. Elwes to be "the largest elm I have ever seen and the largest tree of any kind in Great Britain."[10] Mr. Elwes carefully measured the fallen giant, finding it to be 142 feet high, 27 feet in girth, and containing 2787 cubic feet of timber. He and Dr. Henry pronounce it to have belonged to the variety or sub-species classed as the smooth-leaved Huntingdon or Chichester elm (_U. vegeta_, Lindley), although in this case no suckers had been produced, which the Huntingdon elm usually sends up in profusion.

It is usually stated in forestry manuals that the English elm is not suited for Scottish conditions. My own experience is directly opposed to that view, for, having some score or so of these trees now about 110 years old to compare with wych elms planted at the same time, the English species exceeds the other in height and equals it in bulk. Two English elms at Loudon Castle, in Ayrshire, were measured in 1908, and were found respectively to be 107 feet by 15 feet 4 inches and 105 feet by 16 feet 4 inches.

I have found, however, that by far the shapeliest and best elm for Scottish planting is the smooth-leaved elm, formerly, and probably correctly, considered to be merely a permanent variety of the English elm (_U. campestris_), but now distinguished as a species under the title of _Ulmus nitens_. It certainly resists violent winds better than the English elm, being therefore preferable for sea exposure. Moreover, its timber is esteemed more highly than that of other elms, being remarkably tough. Dr. Henry has distinguished a variety of this elm as _Italica_--the Mediterranean elm--which is the kind used by Tuscan vine-dressers to train their vines on.

The smooth-leaved elm is of less sprawling habit than the wych elm, but occasionally it takes advantage of space to spread out of all measure. Of this there is an example at Sharpham, near Totnes, where a tree of this species has covered the space of a quarter of an acre, some of its side branches being 104 feet long. The total height was between 80 and 90 feet in 1906, in which year it was figured in the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ as a wych elm. Mr. Elwes, however, pronounces it to be of the smooth-leaved kind. On the other hand, the Cornish elm, which is a variety of _U. nitens_, is usually of columnar habit.

The Sycamore and other Maples

"Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,
East wind and frost are safely gone;
While zephyr mild and balmy rain
The summer comes serenely on."

A north countryman, reading Clough's beautiful lines, is pretty sure to apply them to the wrong tree, because, when a Scots forester speaks of a plane tree, he is understood to mean what in the south is called a sycamore. But even that is a misnomer, the true sycamore, mentioned in Holy Writ, being a fig-tree (_Ficus sycamorus_).

IN SUMMER]

The sycamore and the plane are quite distinct, belonging to separate natural orders, the sycamore being a maple (_Aceraceæ_), the largest of all the maples, and the plane constituting a single group in the order _Platanaceæ_. The confusion of names has arisen from the success with which the sycamore masquerades as a plane, imitating its foliage and aping it in its habit of shedding the bark in thin flakes. Botanists have given recognition to this peculiarity by the scientific title they have conferred on the sycamore, viz. _Acer pseudo-platanus_, or the false plane. But in its flower and fruit the sycamore cannot disguise its true affinity. Its flowers are arranged in triplets on long hanging scapes, of a yellowish green, only requiring a dash of brighter hue to render the sycamore one of the loveliest objects in the spring woodland. The flowers are followed by fruits which stamp the tree unmistakably as a maple. The seed-vessels are composed of what in botany are termed _samaræ_ or keys, each containing a large seed or two. These samaræ are attached to each other in pairs, and, as each carries a beautifully-formed membranous wing, the result is a pair of wings to each pair of seed-vessels, securing wide distribution of the seeds by autumnal winds. On the other hand, the flowers of the true plane (_Platanus_) are very minute, and the fruit consists of a mass of thin seeds set among closely-pressed hairs and bristles, forming a hard, perfectly round ball nearly an inch in diameter. These balls, from two to six on each fruiting stalk, hang conspicuously on the branches all winter, until the dry March winds burst them and allow the seeds to float away.

Neither sycamore nor plane are natives of the United Kingdom. The plane, though it excels all other trees for planting in smoky towns like London, does not take kindly to the cooler atmosphere of Scotland and northern England. Not so the sycamore, which, although naturally a product of the mountain ranges of Central and Southern Europe, nowhere flourishes more freely and sows itself more abundantly than in North Britain. Indeed, it is a conspicuous instance of the careless prodigality of Nature how thickly every bare spot in a wood becomes covered with seedling sycamores, not one in a million of which have the faintest chance of surviving two or three seasons.

The life period of the sycamore is a long one, probably three times that of the beech and equal to that of the oak. At Truns, in the Swiss Oberland, a great sycamore, already in ruin, was destroyed by a storm in 1870. As it was under this tree that the Grey League, originators of the canton of Grisons, took the oath in 1424, it can scarcely have been less than 600 years old when it ceased to exist. Mr. Elwes gives the dimensions of another mighty sycamore in Switzerland, growing at an elevation of more than 4000 feet in the canton of Unterwalden, which must be coeval with the tree of the Grey League. It measures 29 feet in circumference at 5 feet from the ground. We cannot quite equal that in Scotland, although in that country and northern England there are some enormous sycamores. Behind the Birnam Hotel stand two very large trees, an oak and a sycamore. The oak, lesser of the two, is shown to visitors as the last survivor of that forest whereof it was said

Macbeth shall never vanquished be
Until great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.

IN WINTER]

The other is a giant sycamore, reported in Hunter's _Woods and Forests of Perthshire_ (1883) to be one thousand years old, which, of course, is impossible. I measured the girth of this great tree in 1903, and made it 19 feet 8 inches at 5 feet from the ground. It was not until long after that I found that Hunter had given exactly the same measurement twenty years earlier. This girth is exceeded by one at Castle Menzies, which, in 1904, gave 20 feet 4 inches. The loftiest sycamore reported in Scotland is also in Perthshire, at Blair Drummond. This tree Dr. Henry ascertained to be 108 feet high, with a girth of 10 feet.

At Kippenross, also in Perthshire, there remain fragments of a sycamore destroyed by lightning in 1860. It was known in the seventeenth century as "the Muckle Tree o' Kippenross," and was estimated in 1821 to contain 875 cubic feet of timber.

It would be vain to attempt within reasonable limits of space to give a catalogue of the notable sycamores in Great Britain. Most of the finest specimens are in Scotland; for no tree can be planted in our northern land with greater security of success; it fears neither severe frost nor reasonable wind exposure; but it insists upon well-drained soil. In damp, low-lying ground it may appear to flourish; but in such a situation it is sure to prove "boss" (to use a term in Scottish forestry) or hollow at the heart when ready for the axe. In England there are many sycamores of 100 feet and upwards; but this tree has become much more closely identified with the landscape of the northern counties than with that of the south.

As a forest tree, the sycamore has been treated with unmerited neglect by British planters; though it is not singular in that respect, so improvidently have we accustomed ourselves to rely upon foreign supplies. We ought to bestow more care upon our sycamores, because not only is it a tree that rapidly re-establishes itself by seed and is practically immune from disease, but it produces timber which, when of sufficient size, commands a higher price than any other British-grown wood. That size is not less than 18 inches quarter girth, representing sixty to eighty years' growth, and from that size up to any dimensions, provided that the bole is straight, clean-grown and free of knots. The main purpose for which such stems are in demand is for making large rollers used in calico and wallpaper printing, in washing machines and cotton dyeing. A few years ago I was shown a single sycamore growing at Makerstoun on Tweedside for which the owner had been offered, and refused, £50. The wood is also in good request for railway carriage panelling, furniture, dairy utensils, etc.

As an ornamental tree it must be owned that the sycamore does not take high rank, owing to the monotonous tone assumed by its massive foliage after the flush of spring has passed. Nor does it usually compound for this by splendour of autumnal colour, as so many of the maple family do. Indeed, this is one of the qualities of its near kindred which the sycamore has discarded in order, it would almost seem, to simulate the plane more perfectly and to justify its appellation of "the false plane"; for the foliage of the plane falls like that of the sycamore without any dying brilliancy. It is true, however, that old sycamores, when sheltered from sea winds, do sometimes assume bright tones of yellow and orange in autumn. At Keir, in Perthshire, a row of aged trees of this species surprised me by their brilliancy in November, 1913.

Although, as I have said, the sycamore is remarkably free from disease and from serious fungoid or insect attacks, it is the host of a parasitic fungus which seldom fails to make its presence apparent, though without perceptibly affecting the growth or health of the tree. Readers must be very familiar with the circular black spots which appear on the leaves about midsummer and continue till they fall. It is not a few leaves or a few trees here and there that are so affected, but all the leaves on large trees and on every tree in the wood. The difficulty is to find a leaf without these black spots; so that people have come to regard them as part of the regular colour scheme of the foliage. Nevertheless, each of these blots is a colony of the parasitic fungus, _Rhytisma_, whereof the life-history is still subject for investigation. It is not evident how the colonies are regularly distributed, each clear of the other, all over the leaves of a lofty tree, nor how, seeing that they fall to the ground with the leaves in autumn, the fungus manages to get access in the following summer to the loftiest branches. It is lucky that, being so widely distributed and existing in such incalculable numbers, these colonies do not appreciably interfere with the natural functions of the sycamore.

The only native species of maple in Britain is the Field Maple (_Acer campestre_), which does not extend naturally into either Scotland or Ireland, though it grows freely in both these countries when planted in either of these countries. It is a very ancient element in the woodland of south Britain, its remains having been identified in pre-glacial beds in Suffolk. It has no qualities to recommend it for ornamental planting, and the timber, once highly prized by British cabinetmakers, has been ousted from the home-market by imported foreign woods. When the Rev. William Gilpin, author of a well-known work on _Forest Scenery_, died in 1804, he was buried, it is said, at the foot of a field maple growing in his own churchyard at Boldre, in the New Forest. Strutt gave a figure of this tree which he described as the largest of the species in England; but he gives the height as only 45 feet, whereas Elwes records several from 60 to 70 feet high.

A far more desirable tree than the field maple is the Norway maple (_A. platanoides_, Linn.). The title "Norway" no more indicates its natural range than the term "Scots" does that of _Pinus sylvestris_, for this maple is found in most European countries and as far east as Persia and the Caucasus. It is a beautiful tree, especially in autumn, when its foliage takes on brilliant red and yellow hues; but it requires attention during the first twenty or thirty years of growth, in order to check its disposition to a straggling branchy habit. If that be stopped by timely pruning, the Norway maple grows straight and free, attaining, under favourable conditions, a height of 80 to 90 feet. Its timber has not the ornamental character of that of field maple, but is said to be of similar quality to that of sycamore. The petioles or leaf-stalks of this species contain a milky juice, whereby the tree may be distinguished from all other members of the genus.

Now, whereas botanists enumerate no fewer than one hundred and ten species of maple, natives of Europe, Asia and America, it would be impossible within the limits of this modest volume to discuss even the most desirable of the genus. Among the North American species there are several that grow to splendid dimensions in their native forest. One of the most distinct is the red maple (_A. rubrum_), a beautiful object in spring when it bears flowers profusely, which, in some varieties, are of a charming red colour. There are a few specimens in England of the well-known sugar maple (_A. saccharum_), but it seldom thrives in this country, though it has been frequently tried since its introduction, according to Loudon, in 1735.

The Plane

Among Scottish foresters the name "plane-tree" has come to signify the sycamore; but the sycamore is a kind of maple, whereas the term "plane" is rightly appropriated to _Platanus_, whereof there are four species, constituting the natural order of _Platanaceæ_. Of these four species, three are natives of North America; and forasmuch as none of them has proved amenable to cultivation in Europe, they may be dismissed with the remark that one of them, the button-wood (_P. occidentalis_), attains enormous proportions in its native forests, rising to a height of 170 feet, and with a girth (recorded by Michaux) of 47 feet.

The fourth species (_P. orientalis_) ranks among the noblest hardwoods of temperate Europe and Asia. Clear among memories of many sylvan scenes stand a pair of giant planes on the flank of Mount Olympus, in the leafless branches of which on a bright January morning a pair of white-tailed eagles monopolised the attention which I was intended by my Turkish host to devote to woodcocks in the copse below. Those who have sailed along the Dalmatian coast will doubtless remember the harbour of Gravosa, and the solitary plane that casts such a grateful shade across the quay. But one need not go to the Continent for giant planes. In our day it is one of the trees most commonly planted in the southern counties for shade and ornament, and has no equal for the smoke-laden atmosphere of London. It may be that it was one of Evelyn's seedlings that Bishop Gunning planted in his Garden at Ely between 1674 and 1684. This tree in 1903 was 104 feet high, with a girth of 20½ feet. Messrs. Elwes and Henry give a photograph of it in their _Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_, and consider it to be the largest specimen in our islands of the cut-leaved variety.

Turner, writing in 1562, mentions "two very young trees" growing in England, which indicates the middle of the sixteenth century as the period of its introduction. A hundred years later, Evelyn says he has raised from seed--

"_Platanus_, that so beautiful and precious tree so doated on by
Xerxes that Ælian and other authors tell us he made halt and stop'd
his prodigious army of seventeen hundred thousand soldiers to
admire the pulchritude and procerity of one of these goodly trees,
and became so fond of it that he cover'd it with gold gemms,
necklaces, scarfs and bracelets, and infinite riches."

The maple-leaved variety, usually known as the London plane, is the sort most commonly planted in England, and rightly so, for it is more vigorous than the other. Probably the tallest in England grows at Woolbeding, in Sussex; it was 110 feet high in 1903, with a girth of 10 feet, and a clean bole of 30 feet. It would be needless to enumerate the fine planes in and near London; one has only to look at the groups beside the Admiralty and in Berkeley Square to realise how it thrives in an atmosphere pernicious to nearly all other forest growths. Fifty or sixty years hence the avenue of planes planted not long since along the Mall will be one of the sights of Europe. The skilful way in which they are being trained each to a single leader gives them a stiff, ungraceful appearance at present; but this treatment is a bit of true arboriculture, carried out in the teeth of bitter criticism. "Bairns and fules shouldna see things half dune."

It is the absence of the conditions specially favourable to the growth of the plane in London and the south that makes it unsuitable for planting in the North of England and in Scotland. It is native to a region of scorching summers; in London the sun's heat is reflected from buildings and streets in a manner most acceptable to it. It will stand any amount of frost it may encounter in Scotland; but it pines for want of summer heat, witness the unhappy condition of those which have been planted experimentally along the west end of Princes Street, Edinburgh. I do not know of a single plane of more than mediocre stature north of the Tweed.

The plane is nearly as late in leafing as the ash and the walnut, thereby escaping the cruel frosts so characteristic of British spring; but unlike the ash, it retains its foliage into very late autumn. Pliny described an evergreen plane growing in Crete; but after the botanist Tournefort (1656-1708) had searched the island in vain for it, this was relegated to the category of myths. Howbeit, tardy justice was done to Pliny as the prince of field naturalists, when in 1865 Captain Spratt, R.N., was shown two young plane trees, retaining their leaves throughout the winter, which had sprung from the root of a very large tree that had been felled. He also heard of two others.

The Oriental plane has not been long enough established with us to give an estimate of its longevity in Britain. In the Mediterranean region it attains a vast age. Only a hollow stump remains of one at Vostiza, in the Gulf of Lepanto, which in 1842 was about 130 feet high and 37 feet 4 inches in girth, and was believed to be the tree described by Pausanias when writing his description of Greece in the second century after Christ. Neither have we learnt to make much use of the timber so plentifully produced by the plane, though it is said to be second to none for the bodies of carriages.

In antiquity of descent the plane tree has few, if any, superiors among broad-leaved trees, its remains having been recovered from the Cretaceous beds of North America, besides numerous species recovered from Miocene and Tertiary strata, in Northern Europe, whence they were expelled when that region became icebound.