Ft.Ins.Height1050Girth of bole,at the ground438Do.,at 1 foot up370Do.,at 2½ feet up278Do.,at 3 feet up259½Do.,at 4 feet up231½Do.,at 4½ feet up2111½Do.,at 5 feet up203½Do.,at 6 feet up197½
Truly an amazing edifice of sound timber; how long has it taken in the building? Normally, the beech is not long-lived compared with the oak, the yew, the Corsican pine, and some other trees grown in British woodland. Its "expectation of life" does not exceed 200 years. When it gets near that age it sometimes dies in a night, so to speak, expiring suddenly while apparently in full vigour. At other times it gets stag-headed, a sure sign of flagging vitality, and becomes infested with parasites, especially the felted beech-scale (Cryptococcus fagi), which administer thecoup de grâce.
But the Newbattle beech is probably much more than 200 years old. Mr. Elwes estimates its age at 300 years. It has adopted a plan for prolonging its existence by allowing its great branches to droop to the ground, where seven of them have taken root, whence they have sprung up afresh and form a perfect grove still maintaining connection with the parent tree. Some of these subsidiary trees are already forty feet high and five feet in girth; and if, as is possible, they continue to contribute to the nourishment of their parent, the life of the original stem may be prolonged indefinitely.
There are at least three other beeches in Scotland taller than the Newbattle monster—namely, at Hopetoun House, at Blairdrummond, and at Methven Castle; but all of these must yield the palm to the Queen Beech at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire. Mr. Elwes measured this tree in 1903, and "made it as nearly as possible to be 135 feet high (certainly over 130), and this is the greatest height I know any deciduous tree, except the elm, to have attained in Great Britain. Its girth was 12 feet 3 inches, and its bole straight and branchless for about 80 feet, so that its contents must be about 400 cubic feet to the first limb."[5]It may be noted in passing that elsewhere in his book Mr. Elwes has recorded certain deciduous trees even taller than the Queen Beech. For instance, on page 365 he mentions larches at Croft Castle, Herefordshire, 150 feet high; on page 873he records having measured an ash at Cobham Hall, Kent, 143 feet high, and on page 1820 the height of the black Italian poplar at Albury Park, Surrey, is estimated at 150 feet.
QUEEN BEECH AT ASHRIDGEReproduced by permission fromThe Gardeners' Chronicle
Beech timber is not held in high repute in the United Kingdom generally, being hard, brittle and perishable under weather exposure, although it is extremely durable under water. I have examined some of the beechen logs which were laid to strengthen the foundations of Winchester Cathedral in the extremely wet peat and shifty gravel which seam the site. For seven hundred years these logs have lain in the ground, faithfully fulfilling the function assigned to them of supporting the Lady Chapel erected by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy in the last few years of his life (he died in 1204), yet they are still perfectly hard and sound, having acquired with age a peculiar wan pearly hue.
In the north we reckon beechen slabs to be the best material for drain-tile soles in wet land. The timber is put to higher purpose in Buckinghamshire, where the extensive beech forests about High Wycombe and Newport Pagnell afford one of the few examples of systematic wood-craft in England. The trees are regularly grown and felled in rotation to supply the chairmaking industry, clean timber commanding, as it stands, a price of 1s. to 1s. 6d. a cubic foot. It has been asserted that the very name Buckingham is derived from the Anglo-Saxonboc, a beech; but it appears in theWinchester Chronicleas Buccingaham, which indicates its origin in afamily named Buccing, descended from an ancestor or chief called Bucca, the Buck. Howbeit, we are incessantly, though unconsciously, using the Anglo-Saxonboc, for it was smooth tablets or panels of beech that formed the primitive "book." In like manner crept in the term "leaves" of a book, because the foliage ofpapyruspreceded paper, which is the same word.
The beech is distinguished for three qualities beyond every other native of British woodland. First, by its abundant leaf-fall it promotes the formation of foresthumus—the rich vegetable soil so essential to vigorous tree growth—more speedily and effectively than any other tree. Secondly, it bears shade better than any other broad-leaved tree; indeed, the only trees of any kind that approach it in this respect are the hornbeam and the silver fir. These two qualities make the beech best of all trees for under-planting; for, while the young beeches nourish the older trees by their leaf-fall and by checking evaporation from the soil, they are themselves preparing as a successional crop for the time when the old trees are ripe for felling. The third distinguishing quality of the beech is its unrivalled merit as firewood. None other throws out so much heat or burns so steadily; though it is a curious fact that the hornbeam, belonging to a different genus from the beech, mimics it in its foliage, is nearly as patient of overhead shade, produces timber closely resembling that of beech in appearance and quality, and, as fuel, yields very nearly as much heat.
Besides the felted beech louse,Cryptococcus fagi, referred to above, the beech is liable to be attacked when young by the deadly fungusNectria ditissima. The trees affected should be felled and burnt so soon as the canker characteristic of that plague manifests itself, for they never can recover. The singular disease called "beech-snap," which causes the stem to break off abruptly at 15 or 20 feet from the ground, is attributable to the fungusPolyporus adustus, thoughNectriais generally present also on the trees affected.
The common beech has sported into many varieties. Those most commonly planted are the purple and copper beeches, which are far from being the same, as many people seem to think they are. A well-grown purple beech, such as that near the south-west corner of Osterley House, Isleworth (to name one out of very many fine specimens which exist in the United Kingdom), is a truly magnificent object, the rich, but subdued, depth of colour showing in charming contrast with other foliage, yet so soft as never to jar with it. This variety is said to have originated in a forest in the canton of Zurich, where, according to the legend, five brothers fought, three of whom fell, and from the soil where each lay grew a purple-leaved beech.
As for the copper beech, had I the chance of stopping the supply, I should not hesitate to do so, for the foliage, as I think, has a disagreeable metallic hue that consorts well with nothing else. Before purchasing young purple beeches, it is prudent to visit the nursery when they are in leaf, or you maybe served with copper beeches, and not discover the mistake till it is too late. The mast or seed of both purple and copper beeches yield a large proportion of seedlings in the parental livery; but no beech, green or purple, bears mast till it is at least forty years old.
The fern-leafed beech is no improvement on the type, and grows with the ungraceful pose of a grafted plant; but the weeping beech, which also has to be propagated by grafts, sometimes develops into an object of great beauty.
Of three or four exotic species of beech in the Northern Hemisphere there is but one, the American beech (F. ferruginea), which would be a gain to ornamental planting in the British Isles. Our own beech has a pretty bark, but that of the American species outshines it as silver does pewter. Unluckily, like many other growths of the Eastern States, it fails utterly to accommodate itself to the British climate. Visitors to Boston, Massachusetts, should not fail to see the group of beeches in the Arnold Arboretum at Brookline.
THE CHAIRMAKER, BUCKINGHAM BEECH WOODS
There are seventeen species of beech native of South America and Australasia. These have now been classified as a distinct genus,Nothofagus, that is, southern beech. Two of them appear to agree with British soil and climate, namely, the evergreenN. betuloides, whereof I have no experience, and the deciduousN. obliqua, of which two seedlings, raised from seed brought from Chile by Mr. Elwes in 1902, were sent me from Kew in 1906 to experiment on theirhardiness. These have grown vigorously, having endured 20° of frost without wincing, and are now [1914] about 20 feet high; but, owing to their leafing fully a fortnight earlier than our native beech, they are more apt to be seared by late frost. In its native country this species equals our own beech in stature and bulk, its timber being largely used for railway sleepers, building, etc. Moreover, judging from the very few young plants in this country, it is an exceedingly ornamental tree. Of the other southern species, six are large evergreen trees, natives of Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania, not capable of enduring the British climate, except, perhaps, in the mildest districts of the south and west.
There are still, I believe, among the loyal subjects of King George V. persons who profess to be Jacobites, as there are undoubtedly thousands who cherish the memory of Prince Charles Edward as a precious national heritage. For these, the beeches that droop over the swift-running Arkaig at Lochiel's place of Achnacarry must have a mournful significance. In the spring of 1745, Donald Cameron of Lochiel, already advanced in years, was busy, in common with many other Scottish lairds, in developing the resources of his estates by draining, reclaiming, and planting trees. The union of the English and Scottish Legislatures had brought peace and security to the northern kingdom such as it had not known since the death of Alexander III. in 1286, and landowners felt encouraged for the first time to apply themselves to useful enterprise.
Suddenly Prince Charlie landed at Borrodale on 28th July, and summoned Lochiel and the other Highland chiefs to his standard. Lochiel, well knowing the hopelessness of the enterprise, started to obey the summons, thoroughly determined to dissuade the Prince from going forward with it. His brother, John Cameron of Fassifern, begged him not to meet the Prince. "For," said he, "I know you far better than you know yourself, and if the Prince once sets eyes upon you, he will make you do what he pleases." Fassifern was but too just in his forecast. It happened exactly as he had said. Lochiel at first flatly refused to bring out his clan; but in the end yielded to the Prince's persuasion, returned home, marshalled fourteen hundred men, and took part in all the phases of that hare-brained campaign, till he was carried off the field of Culloden severely wounded.
During Lochiel's absence a quantity of young beech trees had arrived at Achnacarry from the south to his order. They were heeled in a long row beside the river, awaiting his instructions. But the chief "came back to Lochaber no more." He lingered a couple of years in exile, his estates forfeited, his person proclaimed, and he died in 1748. The beeches were never removed from the trench where they had been set to await his return. They have grown up in a rank of silvery stems, so closely serried that between some of them a man's body may not pass. Winds of winter wail a coronach among the bare boughs; in summer the leafy branches stoop low upon the hurrying water; at the sunniest noontide there reignsdeep gloom under that crowded grove. No more pathetic memorial could be designed for a lost cause and for him whom men spoke of as "the gentle Lochiel."
The sweet or Spanish chestnut (Castanea sativa, Miller) cannot be reckoned indigenous to the British Isles, nor is there any evidence in support of the common belief that it was introduced during the Roman occupation. It is, however, far from improbable that the Roman colonists sowed some of the fruit which they imported as food, and, finding that the young trees took kindly to our soil and climate, continued to cultivate them.
SPANISH CHESTNUTIn Winter
SPANISH CHESTNUTIn Summer
Chestnuts, now as then, form an important part of the winter diet of country folk in Italy and Spain, being ground into flour, whence excellent cakes and pottage are made. British housewives regard them only as a luxury, and large quantities are imported into this country annually; but chestnuts are as nutritive and wholesome as they are palatable, and there are few more appetising odours than that wafted from the charcoal stove of the itinerant vendor of chestnuts, a familiar figure in London streets so soon as chill October draws to a close. I may confess to having partaken, under cloud of night, of this wayside delicacy; nor do I carehow soon the opportunity presents itself of repeating the treat.
Chestnuts ripen well and regularly in the southern English counties, though they are considerably smaller than those imported from the Continent. In Scotland we seldom have enough summer heat to bring them to maturity. The summers of 1911 and 1914, indeed, were long enough and hot enough to ripen them; but even so the nuts were so small that there was more patience than profit in collecting them.
Even though we cannot actually trace the introduction of this noble tree to our Roman conquerors, there is proof in Anglo-Saxon literature that it was known in England before the Norman conquest, for it receives mention by an early writer as the "cisten" or "cyst-beam," "cisten" being but a form of the Latincastanea. Chaucer (1340-1400) is the earliest English poet to mention it, the list of trees wherein he includes it being a very interesting one as showing the nature of English woodland in the fourteenth century.
As oke, firre, birche, aspe, elder, elme, poplere,Willow, holm,[6]plane,[7]boxe, chesten, laure,Maple, thorne, beche, awe, hasel, whipultre,[8]How they were felde shall not be tolde by me.
The right English name is, therefore, "chesten"; modern usage has added "nut," which is as irrational as it would be to speak of a "hazel-nut" to indicate a hazel or a "fircone" to indicate a fir.
Shakespeare, of course, was quite familiar both with the tree and its fruit. Thus one of the witches inMacbeth:
A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,And mounched and mounched and mounched."Give me," quoth I."Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Moreover, the chestnut had been long enough established in England to have its name borrowed to denote a rich shade of russet. So inAs You Like It:
Rosalind.I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.Celia.An excellent colour; your chestnut was ever the only colour.
Rosalind.I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.
Celia.An excellent colour; your chestnut was ever the only colour.
The Spanish chestnut is essentially a southern growth, being found wild only in Southern Europe, Algeria, Asia Minor, and Northern Persia. It is remarkable, therefore, that it should thrive so well in the British Isles, even in the northern part thereof; for although, as aforesaid, it is shy of fruiting in Scotland, it grows to enormous proportions in that country.
Probably the tallest chestnut north of the Tweed is one at Yester, in East Lothian, which in 1908 measured 112 feet high by 18 feet 8 inches in girth. Next to it comes a fine tree at Marchmont, in Berwickshire, 102 feet high by 14½ in girth, with a clear bole of 32 feet. Still further north, there is a huge fellow at Castle Leod, in Ross-shire, which, though only 76 feet high, girths no less than 21 feet 4 inches at 5 feet from the ground.
The finest chestnut I have seen anywhere is in the woodland of Thoresby Park, near Nottingham, being within the bounds of the ancient Sherwood Forest. In 1904 it was 110 feet high, with a straight bole quite clear of branches for 70 feet. Its cubic contents in timber were estimated at 300 feet. Loudon measured this tree in 1837 and found it to be 70 feet high, with a girth of only 11 feet at 1 foot from the ground. Its girth at that height is now over 17 feet. It is impossible to imagine a more perfect specimen of the species than this beautiful tree. It was planted about the year 1730, and is, therefore, now, say, 180 years old. Planters may accept a lesson from this tree, which has been drawn up to its fine stature by being grown in close forest among beeches, some of which, of the same height as itself, have been cleared away to show its fine proportions. Without such discipline, it might have expended its vigour in building up an enormously swollen trunk, instead of towering to its present height.
This tendency towards breadth instead of height may be seen in countless places, both in England and Scotland. The Trysting Tree at Bemersyde, the massive pair in Mr. Wallace's garden at Lochryan, and the great chestnut at Myres Castle, in Fife (19 feet 9 inches in girth), are examples in point. At Deepdene, in Surrey, there stands a tree of this character, the clear bole being only 8 feet high, but girthing 26½ feetat the narrowest part. Near to it is one of nobler proportions—90 feet high, with a girth of 21 feet 5 inches.
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 bedetected 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: itsrépertoirelacked 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 abon motby 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 seeWestminster 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!"
"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 inThe Princess:
Why lingereth she to clothe herself in love?Delaying, as the tender ash delaysTo 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.
MANNA ASH (Fraxinus ornus)At Wakehurst Place
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, anash 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, andfuinnseog(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 becameuinnse(inshy) preserved in the name Inshaw Hill (Wigtownshire), Killyminshaw (Dumfriesshire), etc.; oruinnseog(inshog), recognisable in Inshock (Forfar), Inshaig (Argyll), Inshog (Nairn), Drumnaminshoch and Knockninshock (Kirkcudbright). The pluraluinnsean(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, butit is certainly taken up and aggravated by the fungoid organismNectria 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 infrassinettior 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 C6H8(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 nurserymenreadily 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 toF. ornus, and is said to bear flowers of superior beauty to that tree; but of this I can only write from hearsay.
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 aboutA.D.1700"; but he overlooked the use of the modern form by John Evelyn, who, in hisSylva(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 togetherIn the same fashion as you gave in charge;Just as you left them, sir; all prisonersIn 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 oldto be in great request for making shields, so that in Anglo-Saxonlindmeant a shield, as well as being the name of the tree.
COMMON LIME (Tilia vulgaris)
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—
TheLindenbroke her ranks and rentThe 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 ofThe Trees of Great Britain and Irelandhave 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 itis 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 asthelime treepar 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.
FLOWER OF THE LINDEN TREE (Tilia europæa)
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 WollatonHall, 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.