PAGODA TREE (Sophora japonica)In the Botanic Garden, Oxford
Every country child knows the laburnum, but it is not every planter who recognises that there are two distinct species, bearing a general resemblance to each other, but differing in the time of flowering and in other important respects. The species most usually planted is the common laburnum (L. vulgare), and of a truth it would be difficult to name any tree more delectable with its "dropping wells of fire." It is uncertain how early it was brought from Central Europe to Great Britain; Tradescant had it growing in 1596; but if "awburne," mentioned in an Irish Act of Edward IV. (cap. iv., 1464) among the four woods prescribed for the bow with which every Englishman in Ireland was to provide himself, means "laburnum," it follows that this tree must have beenin cultivation from very early times. Indeed, the botanist Matthiolus mentions it as being better even than the yew for bow-making; and we may recognise the word "awburne" in the old Lowland Scots name for the laburnum, "hoburn saugh," both being from the alternative Latin form,alburnus. Gerard called it the bean-trefoil.
There is but one precaution to be observed in planting laburnums—namely, that they should not be within reach of horses or cattle, for the seeds contain a powerful poison called cytisine. Some years ago, wishing to do wayfarers a service by enlivening a stretch of high road, I caused a row of laburnums to be planted on either side. The trees had attained some stature, when a Clydesdale mare belonging to the tenant of a field bordering the road suddenly died, her death being attributed to eating laburnum seeds, so the trees had to be uprooted. Neither leaves nor bark appear to contain the poison, judging from the avidity shown by rabbits in devouring them. No tree is so vulnerableat all agesby those detestable creatures as are the laburnum and the holly. The largest stems are liable to be barked by them in hard weather. Some writers have copied Pliny in stating that bees will not visit the flowers of laburnum; but Pliny cannot have been writing from personal observation, for modern bees, at least, show no aversion to the yellow blossoms.
The common laburnum seldom exceeds 30 feet in height. The largest I have seen stands in the laundry yard of Alnwick Castle, over 40 feet high,wide-spreading, with a double stem measuring over 11 feet in girth near the ground. When Loudon measured it in 1835 the girth was only 6 feet 11 inches. It is a magnificent sight when in bloom. The timber of laburnum, though now greatly neglected in favour of foreign woods, is of admirable quality for cabinet work, being of a dark olive tint, and taking a fine polish. Seeing that the laburnum is perfectly hardy in our climate and grows rapidly in any well-drained soil, it seems a pity that the fine material it produces is not more commonly used.
FLOWER OF LABURNUM
The alpine laburnum (L. alpinum) goes by the name of Scottish laburnum in the nursery trade. Like the common laburnum, it is a native of Central Europe, being, probably, merely the mountain form of the other, to which it bears a strong general resemblance. The readiest means of distinguishing between the two species consists in the foliage and young shoots. In the common laburnum the leaf stalks, young shoots, and under sides of the leaves are thickly clothed with a smooth, silky pubescence, whereas in the alpine species these parts are quite bare, which causes the tree when in leaf to appear of a deeper green than the other. But the important difference for planters is that the alpine laburnum blossoms a fortnight or so later than the common laburnum, thereby prolonging the display of these charming trees. Elwes describes the flowers of the alpine laburnum as being paler in colour than those of the other species; but according to my own observation they are of the richer gold. There aresome fine specimens in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, verging upon 100 years old, about 40 feet high, and now past their prime. The timber is of the same fine quality as that of the common laburnum.
Some beautiful hybrids have been reared between these two species, and planters cannot be too strongly recommended to use them. The variety known asL. watereribears flower-tassels 15 to 18 inches long. As it is propagated by grafting on the common species, care should be taken not to allow the stock to overcome the scion, root suckers and stem spray being rigidly suppressed.
Another curious hybrid isL. adami, which originated nearly a hundred years ago in a French nursery through engraftingCytisus purpureuson a laburnum stem, with the result that this graft-hybrid produces yellow flowers on some branches and violet ones on others.
Mr. Gerald Loder has secured a charming effect at Wakehurst Place, Sussex, by planting wistaria to grow with laburnum, the flower racemes being similar in size and shape, but respectively of the complementary colours, yellow and violet.
In writing of a beautiful tree as the false Acacia, no reflection upon its integrity is implied in the epithet. The Robinia is so called because Englishmen have chosen to call it an acacia, which it is not, any more than it is a locust tree, as the Americans speak of it. Its scientific title isRobinia pseudacacia, commemorating Jean Robin, who first reared it in France in 1601 from seeds sent to him from NorthAmerica, where it is very widely spread and much valued for the durability of its timber.
William Cobbett (1762-1835) conceived an extravagant idea of its merits, and predicted that it would supersede all British trees, including the oak; but this expectation has fallen far short of fulfilment. Among many other landowners who were induced to act on the faith of it, Lord Folkestone, a fellow-Radical of Cobbett's, planted 13,000 or 14,000 locusts at Coleshill Park, Berkshire, in 1824; but of these only very few remain now, none of them over 60 feet high. The fact is, theRobinialoves more sun than it gets in most parts of our islands and a hotter soil. This renders it unsuitable for planting in Scotland, especially in the humid west. There are, indeed, a few large specimens north of the Tweed, such as one at Cordale House, Dumbartonshire, 64 feet high by 7 feet in girth; another at Mauldslie Castle, Lanarkshire, 60 feet high by 8 feet 7 inches in girth; and, most northerly of all, one at Gordon Castle, which in 1904 measured 56 feet high by 9 feet in girth. But, as a rule, it is only to be found in good form in the sunnier shires; besides, notwithstanding the strength of its timber when felled, the growing boughs are exceedingly brittle, which makes the tree unsuitable for exposure to high winds.
ROBINIA PSEUDACACIAAt Winchester
On the sandy soil of parts of Surrey, especially about St. George's Hill, the locust thrives well, reproducing itself freely from self-sown seed, and forming very lovely objects when covered with fragrant white blossoms in June. Even in such parts of Englandwhere it does best, it is not profitable to let it stand longer than, say, twenty or thirty years, when it makes admirable fencing and gate-posts, which are almost imperishable. At a greater age the trunk becomes coarse and deeply furrowed, often becoming rotten towards the centre. Elwes mentions a locust tree at Frogmore, near Windsor, as the largest in Britain, which he found in 1908 to be 88 feet high by 14 feet 7 inches in girth. One about the same height at Bowood, Lord Lansdowne's place in Wiltshire, was slightly taller, but girthed only 8½ feet.
In France and Italy the locusts thrive as vigorously as in their native continent, and are exceedingly beautiful during the flowering season. They also make very effective hedges, being regularly cut over, when they send up long and strong shoots armed with murderous thorns.
Few trees stand the drought, heat, and smoke of London as well as theRobinia, which carries its verdure unchanged long after the limes and elms have become seared and unsightly. Many a time, when Parliament continued sitting through and after the dog days, have I refreshed my eyes by gazing upon a fineRobiniawhich stood at the corner of the late Lord Sefton's house in Belgrave Square. But that tree is no more, for, when the house changed hands after its former owner's death, and was put into the hands of builders and decorators, they felled my friendlyRobinia.
There are three species ofRobiniaseldom planted in this country—namely,R. hispida,R. neo-mexicana,andR. viscosa, all with beautiful pink or rose-coloured flowers. Of these, the first-named, a native of Carolina, is the most desirable, but it is even more brittle than the locust or false acacia. Its blossoms are so exquisite as to entitle the tree to the advantage of being trained on a wall.
There are two other trees of the peaflower order which one would fain see more frequently planted in the sunnier districts of Great Britain, namely the Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum) and the white-flowered Sophora (S. japonica). I happen to be writing within a couple of hundred yards of the finest Judas tree known to me—at Twyford Lodge, near Winchester. It is 35 feet high, and in these early days of May presents a sight which cannot easily be forgotten. The branches, still leafless, are thickly set with blossom; flowers even break out from the old bark on the stem, and the effect of the whole is a dome of softvieux rose(seeFrontispiece). It is a native of southern Europe, but agrees perfectly with the climate of England, except in northerly districts which are scant of sun, where it should receive the protection of a wall to encourage the formation of flower buds. The Judas tree (so named from the fond belief that the false Apostle hanged himself thereon) is seldom to be seen in our pleasure-grounds, though it has often been planted there; the reason for this being that it is of slow growth in its early stages, and gets smothered with ranker things, often of less merit.
FLOWER OF ROBINIA PSEUDACACIA
The Pagoda tree (Sophora japonica) is a native ofChina, where from immemorial time it has been used in medicine, its flowers, seeds and bark being powerfully purgative. Its blossoms appear in August and September, varying in hue from white to yellow, with a tinge of purple. Those which I have seen bear cream-coloured flowers in long, loose panicles, contrasting finely with the dark, pinnate foliage. The tallest specimens I have seen are at Syon House, about 70 feet high. There is also a very large one within the Tilt Yard of Arundel Castle, and Elwes measured one at Cobham Park, Kent, which was 85 feet high in 1905. Atpage 144is shown a fine Pagoda tree in the Botanic Garden at Oxford. I do not remember to have seen any specimens in Scotland. Probably the late flowering habit of the tree would not suit the northern kingdom.
In the humid atmosphere of the west there is no more inveterate forest growth than the elder or, as we call it in Scotland, the bourtree (Sambucus nigra), which, springing from seeds which birds, having stuffed themselves with the sweet berries, distribute far and wide, shoots up with amazing rapidity, indifferent as to sun or shade, for it grows happily under dense forest canopy, although it is only in the open that it makes full display of its great discs of cream-coloured flowers.
From the earliest times there have been two schools of opinion about the elder. Pliny put faith in decoction of its leaves as a febrifuge, and in his day malaria was a terrible scourge in Italy. In 1644 appeared a book entirely devoted to its virtues—The Anatomie of the Elder, translated from the Latin of Dr. Martin Blockwich by C. de Iryngio; and thirty years later John Evelyn burst into a coruscation of italic type in praise of this humble tree.
"If theMedicinalproperties of theLeaves,Bark,Berries, &c., were thoroughly known, I cannot tell what ourCountry-mancould aile for which he might not fetch aRemedyfrom everyHedge, eitherforSicknessorWound. The innerBarkeofElder, apply'd to anyburning, takes out thefireimmediately.That, or in season theBuds, boyl'd in Water-grewel for aBreak-fast, has effected wonders in theFever; and thedecoctionis admirable to asswageInflammationsandtelroushumors, and especially theScorbut. But anExtractorTheriacamay be compos'd of theBerries, which is not only efficacious to eradicate thisEpidemicalinconvenience, and greatly to assistLongevity(so famous is the story ofNæander), but is a kind ofCatholiconagainst all infirmities; and of the sameBerriesis made an incomparableSpiritwhich, drunk by itself or mingled withWine, is not only an excellent drink, but admirable in theDropsy.... TheOyntmentmade with the youngbudsandleavesinMaywithButter, is most soveraign forAches, shrunkSinews,Hemorrhoids, etc."
"If theMedicinalproperties of theLeaves,Bark,Berries, &c., were thoroughly known, I cannot tell what ourCountry-mancould aile for which he might not fetch aRemedyfrom everyHedge, eitherforSicknessorWound. The innerBarkeofElder, apply'd to anyburning, takes out thefireimmediately.That, or in season theBuds, boyl'd in Water-grewel for aBreak-fast, has effected wonders in theFever; and thedecoctionis admirable to asswageInflammationsandtelroushumors, and especially theScorbut. But anExtractorTheriacamay be compos'd of theBerries, which is not only efficacious to eradicate thisEpidemicalinconvenience, and greatly to assistLongevity(so famous is the story ofNæander), but is a kind ofCatholiconagainst all infirmities; and of the sameBerriesis made an incomparableSpiritwhich, drunk by itself or mingled withWine, is not only an excellent drink, but admirable in theDropsy.... TheOyntmentmade with the youngbudsandleavesinMaywithButter, is most soveraign forAches, shrunkSinews,Hemorrhoids, etc."
And so on and so on, much in the strain of modern advertisement of patent medicines. The boot is on the other leg now, for although hot elder-berry wine glows comfortably in memories of boyhood, I know not where I might now get a glass thereof, were I to perish for want of it.[15]Thoughtful housewives still provide elder flower water on the toilet tables of their guests, and methinks the ointment may be found in some conservative nurseries.
Contemporary with mediæval esteem of the elder was the belief that it was accursed because it was the tree whereon Judas hanged himself. We know, of course, that in Southern Europe the beautiful Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum) is stained by that imputation, but Sir John Mandeville (fourteenth century) assured his countrymen that he had been shown at Jerusalem the identical "Tree of Eldre" on whichthe traitor ended his career. The chief reason for hesitating to accept Mandeville's evidence is that he never, or hardly ever, told the truth except by accident. Shakespeare, however, entertained the belief, for inLove's Labour's Losthe makes Biron say to Holofernes, "Judas was hanged on an elder," and science has lent assent to the rural fancy which gave the name Jew's Ears to the flabby black fungus that makes the elder its peculiar host by calling itHirneola auricula-Judæ.
The pith which bulks so largely in the young growth of elder ceases to increase after the second year, and becomes compressed, and the wood that forms round it is exceedingly hard. In old times it was much in request for making pipes and other musical instruments. Pliny has preserved a quaint bit of folk-lore about it. He says the shepherds believe "that the most sonorous horns are made of an elder growing where it has never heard a cock crow." In our day we put the wood to no use whatever, unless, in the West of England, butchers still use it for skewering meat, which it was supposed to guard from taint. But—
No sound shall creak through the solemn pines,The ocean shall lose its roar,The wild horse cease to skim the plain,The alpine peaks be level again,The eagle forget to soar,
before our boys forget the simple craft that turns whistles and popguns out of elder shoots. For this, and certain other qualities, the elder claims a permanentplace in our affection. It never winces or complains under the harshest phases of our climate, and it forgets its melancholy at midsummer, when an old bourtree, 30 feet high or so, set with scores of creamy saucers, is a really beautiful object.
ELDER (Sambucus nigra)In June
ELDER (Sambucus nigra)In December
The elder has given names to many places in our land. In the Cornish dialect of Celtic, now extinct, it was calledscauandscauan, and is preserved in Tresco, Boscawen, Penscauan, etc. In old Celtic it wastrom, genitivetruim, whence, as we learn from the Book of Armagh, the town Trim, in Meath, was formerlyAth-truim, the elder ford. Galtrim, in the same county, appears in the annals asCala-truim, the meadow of the elder. Trimmer, Trummer, and Trummery are Irish place-names, all perpetuating the memory oftromaire, an elder wood. The Truim, a principal tributary of the Spey, probably was originally Amhuinn Truim, the elder river. In the Scottish lowlands we find Bourtriehill, Bourtriebush, etc., while in England it is difficult to distinguish "elder" in composition from "alder." Skeat suggests the two words are of identical origin, and in each thedis intrusive. Elderfield, a parish in Worcestershire, Ellerby and Ellerton in Yorkshire bear a pretty clear stamp.
To admit the hazel to rank among forest trees may seem like magnifying a molehill into a mountain; but it was a growth so important to the primitive community, as the only native tree contributing to winter provender, that it would be ungrateful to omit it. I was greatly impressed by this fact when, many years ago, we were exploring "crannogs," or lake dwellings, in the south-west of Scotland, in all of which nut-shells were found in quantity.
One instance was particularly remarkable. Dirskelvin Loch, a small sheet of water in Old Luce Parish, contained a very large crannog, built, as we roughly calculated, with between 2,000 and 3,000 trees. The loch having been drained away, we proceeded to exfoliate the crannog. In going along what had been the north-east margin of the vanished loch, I found it deeply covered with hazel-nut shells—many, many cartloads of them. Evidently they were kitchen waste from the crannog, drifted to that quarter before the prevailing south-west wind.
If the reader does not consider that the food itproduces justifies admission of the hazel among forest trees, let him meet me at Merton Parish Church, on Tweedside, turn off the main road to the left at Clint Mains, and, as we travel towards Bemersyde, he shall see in the road fence on his right hand a row of hazels which it would be a misuse of terms to style bushes. Speaking from recollection, they stand about 25 feet high, with single stems that must girth not less than 18 inches to 2 feet. The fact is, the hazel does not often get a chance of attaining its full stature, being commonly cut for copse or treated as undergrowth.
He, however, who aims at growing hazel timber need not waste time in educating our BritishCorylus avellana, but plant the Turkish hazel,C. colurna, which is perfectly hardy in our climate. It is represented by very few specimens in these islands, albeit it was grown in England as "the filbeard of Constantinople" so long ago as 1665. The finest trees of this species are at Syon House, Brentford, the tallest of which was 75 feet high in 1904, with a girth of 6 feet 9 inches, and a clean bole of 30 feet. The timber is said to have a beautiful texture, pinkish white, and sometimes grained like bird's-eye maple. French cabinetmakers import it under the name ofnoisetier.
Returning to our native hazel, we no longer depend upon its fruit to sustain us through the winter, though large quantities of the cultivated varieties, filbert and cob-nut, are still grown in Kent for the market. Of the wood, it can only be said that it produces excellent walking-sticks, and has no equalin hurdle-making. Modern anglers have no use for it, preferring greenheart and split cane, though of old it was considered asine qua nonfor rod-making. Thus the author ofThe Boke of Saint Albansprescribes:
"Ye that woll be crafty in anglynge, ye must fyrste lerne to make your harnays, that is to wyte your rodde.... And how ye shall make your rodde crafty here I shall teche you. Ye shall kytte betwene Myghelmas and Candylmas a fayr staffe of a fadome and an halfe longe, and arme grete, of hasyll, willowe, or aspe."
"Ye that woll be crafty in anglynge, ye must fyrste lerne to make your harnays, that is to wyte your rodde.... And how ye shall make your rodde crafty here I shall teche you. Ye shall kytte betwene Myghelmas and Candylmas a fayr staffe of a fadome and an halfe longe, and arme grete, of hasyll, willowe, or aspe."
The prescription goes on for drying, straightening, and boring out the middle of the staff, and then—
"In the same season take a fayr yerde of grene hasyll and beth hym evyn and streyghte, and let it drye with the staffe, and whan they ben drye make the yerde mete into the hole in the staffe, unto halfe the length of the staffe.... And thus shall ye make you a rodde soo prevy that ye may walke therewyth, and there shall noo man wyte where abowte ye goo."
"In the same season take a fayr yerde of grene hasyll and beth hym evyn and streyghte, and let it drye with the staffe, and whan they ben drye make the yerde mete into the hole in the staffe, unto halfe the length of the staffe.... And thus shall ye make you a rodde soo prevy that ye may walke therewyth, and there shall noo man wyte where abowte ye goo."
Seeing that the staff was to be "a fadome and an halfe longe" (9 feet), and as thick as his arm, the wayfarer's progress might not be so "prevy" as is set forth if water bailiffs were on the lookout!
AILANTHUS GLANDULOSAAt Wadham College, Oxford
In many southern parts of the British IslesAilanthus glandulosahas attained forest stature; but it seems to require more sunshine than it can receive in the average Scottish summer. Loudon, indeed, mentions one at Dunrobin, in Sutherland, which was 43 feet high about eighty years ago; but I have found no trace of that tree in the woods there. There used to be one at Syon 100 feet high, but this has been dead for some years. Elwes and Henry have recorded several in the home counties measuring from 70 to 80 feet in height. Dr. Henry found it wild only in the mountains of Northern China. Elsewhere in China it is cultivated to support a certain species of silk-worm (Attacus cynthia); also a drug is prepared from the root bark; but its timber is regarded as fit only for firing, although in this country it has been found serviceable by wheelwrights. It is said to resemble ash, but is of inferior toughness and elasticity.[16]He, therefore, would be acting very unwisely who, having land suitable for ash, should devote it to growing Ailanthus. Indeed the tree,though handsome and hardy, would hardly deserve attention from British planters, were it not for its admirable fitness for street planting. Except the plane, no forest growth adapts itself so generously to the arid heat, the drought and noxious air of London. For this purpose, it is important that, as the Ailanthus is diœcious, only female trees should be planted; the males exhaling a disagreeable rammish odour. I have never been in Northern China, but I cannot conceive that the splendid pinnate foliage of this tree can be more luxuriant in its native forest than it is in a few of the driest, dustiest London thoroughfares.
The habit of the tree in this country tends to forking, probably because the leader is apt to be nipped by late frost; wherefore, to secure a shapely specimen, timely use of the knife is necessary; which attention, to judge from the trees I have seen, is very seldom paid to it.
Except the birch, the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) is more widely distributed over northern Europe than any other species of tree, and it shows more indifference than any other to variations of climate. While in Eastern Siberia it sustains without flinching a temperature of 40° below zero (Fahr.), it thrives in Southern Spain under a summer heat of 95°. It seems as much at home in the sun-baked region of Southern France as it is in the perennially humid atmosphere and cool soil of Western Scotland and Ireland.
Yet there are limits to its cosmopolitan endurance. Not long ago I spent a profitable day in the Arnold Arboretum at Boston, Massachusetts, under the guidance of its presiding genius, Professor C. S. Sargent. After wandering for hours amid the luxuriant vegetation of that magnificent park, we stopped beside a mangy, stunted conifer, and he asked me whether I recognised it. I did not; but guessed at hazard that it was the JapanesePinus parviflora. I was surprised to be told that this was the best that could be done in that country with our own Scots pine.From causes difficult to define, probably similar to those which prohibit the growth of our common ivy in the Eastern United States, this tree resists all attempts to make it at home in that atmosphere.
SCOTS PINE WOOD
It may seem strange that this tree should be known as the Scots pine, having regard to its enormous geographical range and to the insignificant area which it occupies in Scotland as compared with the vast forests in Russia, Scandinavia, and other countries. Its scientific title,Pinus sylvestris—the forest pine—would appear more appropriate. But it has received its English name because, although at one time it was spread as a native over all parts of the British Isles, it is now only to be found in a truly wild state in the fragments of old forest remaining in Strathspey, Deeside, and here and there in the counties of Inverness and Perth. From England probably it had entirely disappeared when, in the seventeenth century, certain landowners succeeded in reintroducing it; and now it has attained splendid proportions in Surrey and other southern counties, and spreads freely by its winged seeds wherever these fall on unoccupied lands. Were it not for deer, sheep, and rabbits, most of ourdrymoors and heathland would be covered with pine forest up to the thousand feet level. Howbeit, most of the moorland in the United Kingdom is the reverse of dry. Except in Eastern Scotland and the Surrey uplands, it is usually clad with a dense coat of wet peat, reeking with humic acid and inimical to tree growth of any kind. One of the darkest enigmas of natural science is presented in the remains of pineforest buried under such a dismal treeless expanse as the Moor of Rannoch, and on Highland hills up to and beyond 2000 feet altitude, far higher than any tree can exist now. The explanation seems most likely to be arrived at in the direction indicated by certain symptoms of the alternation of periods of greater and less rainfall—periods comprising thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years. Trees, it has been suggested, might grow and reproduce themselves at high altitudes during the drier cycles; but when the rainfall and atmospheric humidity increased beyond a certain degree, the soil would become covered with moss, seedlings would be smothered or never start, and humic acid would render the ground unfit for any growth except heather and moorland herbs.
Diligent collectors and enterprising nurserymen have ransacked the remotest forests to furnish British woodlands with profitable timber-producers and British pleasure-grounds with ornamental trees; yet among all the scores of exotic conifers which have taken kindly to our ocean-girt land, the Scots pine, in my judgment, need fear no rival in beauty after reaching maturity.
It is not a little remarkable, considering how well adapted our moist climate is for evergreen growth, that the Scots pine and the juniper should be the only two conifers indigenous to Britain since the glacial age. (The yew used to be classed as coniferous, but has now been removed to a separate order.) The Norway spruce, as shown by remains in pre-glacialdeposits in Norfolk, once flourished in our land; but it has never recovered a footing there since the severance of Britain from the Continent.
No tree shows a greater difference than Scots pine in the quality of its timber at different stages of growth. Unlike larch, which yields useful and durable wood from a very early age, Scots pine is very soft and perishable until the tree approaches eighty years old. It is true that young deals and posts may be rendered serviceable by boiling in creosote; but it is not until the tree reaches maturity that the timber becomes valuable, without that treatment, for anything except pit-props.
In 1783 Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon, sold a great breadth of the pine forest of Glenmore to an English merchant, who took twenty-two years to fell it. The logs were floated down the Spey, and built at Speymouth into forty-seven ships of an aggregate burthen of 19,000 tons. When Mr. Osborne, the purchaser of the timber, finished his work in 1806, he sent a memorial plank to the Duke, which now stands in the entrance hall of Gordon Castle. It measures 5 feet 5 inches in width at the butt end, and 4 feet 4 inches at the top, and is of a rich dark brown colour. The top of this magnificent tree lies where it was cut off more than one hundred years ago, on the hill above Glenmore Lodge, 1400 feet above the sea, and is still hard and sound, 3 feet in diameter where it was cut off. Now, had that been part of a tree, say, fifty years old, frost and wet would have rotted it to the core in ten years or less; but thesnows and rains of a century have made little impression on the bones of this giant. Mr. Elwes was shown a tree in the King's Forest of Ballochbuie, on Deeside, which had been cut up after lying for seventy years where it fell, yet the timber was quite sound.
Age apart, the value of Scots deal varies much according to the manner in which it is grown. It is not the most picturesque pines that yield the finest timber; for the result of growing singly or in scattered groups is a spreading branchy habit, causing coarse, knotty wood. Enormous quantities of Scots pine from Scandinavia and pinaster from France, twenty to thirty-five years old, are imported into Great Britain for pit-props. These might be just as well grown in the British Isles, to the great advantage of rural employment; but British foresters are only now beginning to understand the economic management of timber crops. The great majority of woodlands in these islands have been ruined by over-thinning. Welsh mineowners decline to use the knotty British-grown pines so long as they can get clean-grown French timber.
Happily, a better understanding of the principles of economic forestry is being arrived at in this country, so that more satisfactory results may be expected in the future. Scots pine should be grown in close canopy—that is, with a continuous cover of foliage throughout the wood—until the trees are seventy or eighty years old. By that time long, clean boles will have been formed, and the forest may be dealt withaccording to the views of the owner, whether his object be profit or beauty; for, unlike the oak, the Scots pine may be isolated from his fellows after reaching maturity without suffering in constitution.
The mildness and humidity of the British climate are unfavourable to the production of the best quality of deal, promoting, as they do, over-rapid growth and, in consequence, wide annual rings in the stem. The forester's object should be to check this by growing the trees so close that increase of trunk diameter may be retarded, and the annual rings crowded into small space until the trees are near maturity. That is the secret of the superior quality and durability of Russian and Scandinavian deals over all but the finest British pine.
FLOWER AND FRUIT OF SCOTS PINE
Amateurs in landscape object to the scientific treatment of pine forest, complaining that it creates a tiresome monotony. It is quite true that a plantation of Scots pines of middle age is not an interesting subject of contemplation, except to foresters. Nevertheless, it is half-way to what may become one of the most impressive scenes in nature. The most beautiful tract of Scots pine forest I have ever seen is that which clothes the slopes of the Wishart Burn, near Gordon Castle. This was planted about 180 to 190 years ago, and it is evident that the trees have gone through strict discipline of close company in early life, for their trunks are lofty, perfectly clean and even, carrying their girth well up to the branches at 50 or 60 feet from the ground. The tallest tree measured by Mr. Elwes in this wood seven years ago was about117 feet high, with a girth at breast height of 1 inch short of 11 feet. He estimated that it contained 345 cubic feet of timber. Many of the trees in this wood have been felled; but there remain about sixty to the acre—say, 6000 cubic feet per acre. They would be easily saleable standing at 6d. a foot, or £150 per acre.
As for landscape beauty, it would be difficult to imagine a fairer woodland scene than is composed by this company of aged pines. They do not stand so close now as to prevent one "seeing the wood for the trees"; the sun rays penetrate freely among the stately stems, which have that peculiar bloom of pearly rose that distinguishes the bark of old Scots pine. Aloft, the light flashes on the brighter hue of ruddy boughs supporting the massive foliage; below, the undulating ground, steep and rocky in places, is clothed with bilberry, fern, and other lowly growth. There is nothing gloomy or dreary in the scene, which he who visits it will not readily forget.
In Gaelic the name for the pine isgiuthas(pronounced "gewuss," with a hardg). As is usual in the case of native trees, this word may be identified in many place-names both in Scotland and Ireland; albeit, sometimes pretty well disguised in modern orthography. Guisachan and Kingussie may be recognised pretty easily, the latter beingcinn giuthasaich—"at the end or head of the pine wood"; but it requires some smattering of Gaelic speech to avoid the ornithological suggestion conveyed in the name Loch Goosie, in Kirkcudbright, and to interpret it correctly as "the loch of the pine wood."
I have remarked above that a mature Scots pine has no rival in beauty in the genus, and indeed the charming outline, blue-green foliage, ruddy branches and roseate grey trunk of a well-grown Scot of 150 years' growth can admit no superior in comeliness; but, on second thoughts, I must admit that it has a dangerous competitor in the Monterey pine (P. radiatasyn.insignis). Native of an extremely limited range on the Californian coast, the first seedlings were raised in England in 1833. There are now several specimens recorded as over 100 feet in height. In rapidity of growth it excels all other pines, at least in the moist climate of the British Isles. One which I planted in 1884 at Monreith was blown down in 1911, and was found to be 61 feet 6 inches in height, with a girth of 5 feet 4 inches, certainly a remarkable growth in 27 years. If the timber were of a quality proportioned to the rapidity with which it is produced, the Monterey pine would indeed be a valuable tree, but our experience of it in this country differs in no respect from Sargent's report, viz. "Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, close-grained." If it were grown in sufficient quantity it might prove good for pulping, but it is of no other economic value. Moreover, this pine is only suitable for the milder parts of the United Kingdom—the south and west coasts of Great Britain and the whole of Ireland. Almost the only exception known to me is a tree at Keir, in Perthshire, which in 1905 was about 70 feet high, with a girth of 11 feet. This must be an individual of exceptional hardihood, for in most inland districts,except in Ireland, the Monterey pine has succumbed to frost. In maritime districts it is a most desirable tree, affording splendid shelter and gladdening the eye with its rich foliage of deep but brilliant green and rugged, massive trunk.
To describe, however briefly, all the exotic pines that have been successfully grown in the British Isles would fill a volume in itself. I cannot do more or better than refer the reader who desires the fullest information about them to the great work of Elwes and Henry wherein all particulars are given of about fifty different species. Yet I cannot refrain from mentioning one European species which I regard as qualified in large measure to supplant the Scots pine as a commercial asset in British woodland. I refer to the Corsican pine (P. laricio) and its varieties which, despite the insular title popularly given to the tree, cover a range extending from southern France and Spain to the Caucasus. Among these varieties, late authorities include the Austrian pine (P. austriaca), which, if it be botanically identical with the Corsican, is of very inferior merit for British planters. In extreme exposure it forms good shelter, but its habit is coarse and roughly branching, very different from the fine columnar growth of the Corsican. Moreover, there is this singular distinction between the two trees—one of no slight importance to foresters in our rodent-ridden land—that whereas hares and rabbits greedily devour young Austrian pines, they never touch the Corsicans; at least I have never known them injure one of tens of thousands which Ihave planted, though I have heard of newly-planted trees being attacked elsewhere under extreme stress of hard weather.
Dr. Henry has given a very full description of the pine forests of Corsica,[17]whence it appears that, owing to the excess of sapwood, the timber is of little value till the trees are 200 to 300 years old, at which age the trunks average only 3 feet in diameter. A forest tree which develops so slowly is not likely to find much favour with British foresters; and the fact that this pine grows faster in our islands than on its native mountains certainly does not lead one to expect a high quality of timber. I have, however, cut poles of Corsican pine thirty years old to support the galvanised roof of a hayshed. They averaged 8 inches in diameter at 5 feet from the ground, and were undoubtedly larger and finer than Scots pine of the same age growing among them, which I should never dream of using for such a purpose; but, as the shed has only been standing for three or four years, it is too early to regard this as a test. The merits of this pine already ascertained in this country are resistance to wind exposure, straight and rapid growth, and immunity from damage by ground game. These qualities render it most valuable for planting mixed with other trees, for which purpose I consider it superior to Scots pine. It requires, however, more considerate nursery treatment, for its root system is straggling; and planting out should be delayed till the middle of April and carried on tillthe middle of May. Observing this rule, I have found the percentage of loss after planting to be trifling, certainly not greater than with Scots pine; but the results are not so satisfactory in southern England on hot soils. The Corsican pine, however, demands all the light it can get, being extremely impatient of shade, whether overhead or alongside.
The great expectations formed about the Weymouth pine (Pinus strobus) when it was brought to England early in the eighteenth century have not been fulfilled. Known as the white pine of the North American lumber trade, it received its British designation from the extent to which it was planted by Lord Weymouth at Longleat. It is true that many fine specimens exist in several parts of these islands, notably that which was blown down in 1875 near Tortworth in Gloucestershire, measuring 122 feet high with 46 feet of clean bole; but as a forest tree it has never taken high rank with us, perhaps because, generally grown as a specimen, it has not been subjected to forest treatment, and the quality of the timber is ruined by the uprush of a number of competing tops. It was this habit that disfigured a Weymouth pine at Dunkeld which I measured in 1902 and found to be 13 feet 3 inches in girth at 4 feet from the ground, the clean bole being about 30 feet. I think this tree has since been blown down.
Far superior to the Weymouth pine in erect habit is the Western White pine (P. monticola), which, in other respects, resembles the other very closely. This would be a most desirable tree for use as well as ornament,but that it has proved susceptible to attacks of the rust-fungus (Peridermium strobi), an organism which requires to pass alternate generations onRibes(currant). A number of fineP. monticolain the famous woods of Murthly, some of which were over 80 feet high in 1906, have perished under the agency of this parasite. On the west coast, however, this fungus does not seem to have made its appearance. Of two trees of this species which I planted in 1876, believing them to be Swiss stone pines (P. cembra), one is now a straight, shapely tree 57 feet high, with a girth of 5 feet 4 inches at 5 feet from the ground; and both have produced plenty of seed whence a large number of seedlings have been planted out.
No notice of the Pines, however fragmentary and superficial, could be justified if it did not include a reference to the Pinaster or Cluster Pine (Pinus maritima). British tourists on their journey to or from Biarritz, Pau, etc., can scarcely fail to have noticed the immense plantations of this tree through which the railway runs between Bayonne and Bordeaux. For nearly 100 miles the woodland is well-nigh continuous, consisting almost exclusively of this species, and covering an area of nearly two million acres "perhaps" says Mr. Elwes, "the most extensive forest ever created by the hand of man." Estimating the capital sunk in planting, road-making, etc., since 1855 at upwards of £2,000,000, M. Huffel put its value in 1904 at £18,000,000, the annual revenue from timber, turpentine and resin being then more than half a million sterling—equal to arent of about 7s. an acre. In a wild state, the landes thus occupied were practically worthless for agriculture.
Although the pinaster is a native of the Mediterranean region, it agrees admirably with the soil and climate of the British Isles, thrusting its boughs out in the teeth of severe wind exposure, growing to great height and bulk and ripening abundant seed. Yet it is a despised tree with us, few landowners being at pains to plant it now, although a considerable number seem to have been planted about the end of the eighteenth century and early in the nineteenth.
While the wide range of the English language over the globe is of considerable advantage to commerce, and possibly to some other interests, it is the source of some perplexity when, as in treating of natural history or botany, precise terms have to be employed. Thus in the United Kingdom most people know exactly what tree is meant by the silver fir; but in the United States, with a population well on to double that of the British Isles, the silver fir is understood to mean quite a different species—namely,Abies venusta, a native of California, not suitable for forestry purposes in this country. In like manner, though there is no true cedar indigenous to America, there are half-a-dozen trees there known as red cedar, white cedar, and so forth. English, being a living language, is still fluid; meanings shift with changes of environment; to secure precision, therefore, science must have recourse to classical Greek and Latin, which, being dead languages, change no more.
The group of evergreen conifers, then, collectively known as silver firs, consists of about thirty speciescomprised in the genusAbies; and these are most easily recognised by the position of the mature cones, which stand erect on the branches, whereas in the other group of true firs, the spruces (Picea), they are pendulous in all except two or three Asiatic species. Another mark of distinction is the circular base of the needle or leaf, which, when it falls or is pulled from the branch, leaves a perfectly circular scar; while in the spruces the leaves are set upon little pegs which remain on the twig when the leaves fall. The grey or silvery bands on the under side of the leaf, although it is from these that the tree is called the silver fir, are not an exclusive badge of the genus; for some of the other firs, notably the Manchurian spruce, display similar colouring.
The tree known in this country as the silver firpar excellence(Abies pectinata) is the loftiest European tree. Probably the extreme height had been attained by one grown in a Bosnian virgin forest, measured by Mr. Elwes after it had fallen, "over 180 feet long, whose decayed top must have been at least 15 or 20 feet more."
The silver fir is not a native of Britain, having been introduced about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Its range extends over southern and central Europe, from the Pyrenees on the west to the borders of Wallachia on the east. Nevertheless, it has found a congenial home in these islands, where, if it had ever received scientific handling, it would have been far more highly esteemed for its timber than it now is. Such handling we have never given it; the silverfir has been used indiscriminately in mixed plantation, where, outstripping every other tree in stature, it loses its leader, and sends up a number of heads which get battered by the wind, becoming ragged and unsightly.
Now if these noble firs, instead of being scattered among trees of inferior height, were planted in close forest, so as to be drawn up with clean boles to a single leader, they would protect each other from the gale. Then might be seen something of the true character of the silver fir as it is developed in such forests as that of the Vosges, in Eastern France, where a tract fifty miles long is clad principally with this species, or in the Jura, where a forest of silver fir 10,600 acres in extent yields annually 170 cubic feet of timber per acre felled. British foresters and wood merchants set a low value on such timber as the silver fir produces in this country; and small blame to them, because, grown as we are in the habit of growing it, branchy and full of great knots, it is almost worthless; but in some districts of Europe where silver forest is well managed and felled in rotation, the deals are more sought after and command a readier market than spruce. The thinnings make excellent pitwood, and although, like spruce, the timber is not naturally durable enough for outdoor purposes, it can be made so by creosote treatment.