the trees of great britain & ireland - Facsimile Books & other digitally ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

122 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland peculiar magnesian limestone formation, which decomposes into a red loamy soil, on which yews grow very freely, though they do not attain anything like the size that they do in the south of England. The largest which 1 measured was only 8 feet in girth. What makes them so picturesque is the way in which their roots spread over the bare rocks, and the mixture of curiously gnarled wych elms which accompany them. All the foot-bridges are here made of yew wood, but it is not cut except for home use, and is not increasing by seed again, I think, on account of the rabbits. There is a remarkably fine yew walk at Hatherop Castle, Gloucestershire, the seat of G. Bazley, Esq., which is supposed to be about 300 years old, in which the trees average about 60 feet in height with a girth of 9 to 12 feet. The yew in Harlington Churchyard, near Hounslow, Middlesex, was considered by Kirchner (loc. cit. 66) to be the tallest yew tree in Europe, viz., 17.4 metres (57 feet). Lowe, page 85, gives the height in 1895 as 80 feet, on the authority of the Rev. E. J. Haddon. Henry saw this yew in October 1895, and measured the height as 50 feet only, and this is correct, within a margin of error of less than 2 feet. This tree is 17 feet 3 inches in girth at the base, where the bole is narrowest; above this it swells and is very gnarled, and at 10 feet up it divides into two great limbs. A celebrated yew stands in the churchyard at Crowhurst, in Surrey, and has been described by Lowe (p. 201) and figured by Clay ton. 1 Crowhurst, in Sussex, has another great old tree of which much has been written, and which Low figures (p. 38). One of the finest yews in England is the Darley yew, growing in the church yard at Darley Dale, Derbyshire. From a work on Derbyshire Churches, by the Rev. J. C. Cox, M.A., which has been sent me by Messrs. Smith, the well-known nurserymen of Darley Dale, I abridge the following particulars of it: The churchyard is celebrated for what is claimed to be the finest existing yew tree in England, or even in the United Kingdom. Rhodes, writing of it in 1817, says that the trunk for about 4 yards from the ground measures upwards of 34 feet in girth; but Lowe gives (p. 207) measurements taken by four different persons between 1836 and 1888, of which the largest is 34 feet 6 inches by Mr. Smith in 1879, and the most recent and exact by Mr. Paget Bowman in 1888, which gives 32 feet 3 inches at 4 feet from the ground. This gentleman cut from it with a trephine nine cylinders of wood on one horizontal line which show 33 to 66 rings per inch of radius, showing an average growth of an inch in 46 years. There is a cavity in the tree about half-way up one of the trunks which will hold seven or eight men standing upright. At the ground the girth is 27 feet, and at this point no increase has taken place for 52 years. The height is not given, but a photograph by Mr. Statham shows it as about 50 feet. I have chosen the tree at Tisbury for illustration as a specimen of the church yard yew, for though figured by Lowe, his plate gives a poor idea of its symmetry, and it is one of the largest healthy yews in England. Though difficult to measure on account of the young spray which its trunk throws out, I made it in 1903 to be 1 Trans. Bot. Sac. Edititurgh, 1 903, p. 408, Taxus 123 about 45 feet high by 35 in girth. The trunk is hollow, and has inside it a good- sized younger stem, probably formed by a root descending inside the hollow trunk from one of the limbs. It is a female tree, and of its age it is impossible to form a correct estimate. (Plate 35.) At Kyre Park, Worcestershire, the residence of Mrs. Baldwyn Childe, is a very fine yew tree growing near the wonderful grove of oaks which I have described elsewhere; it measures 55 feet high by 20 in girth. Under it the Court Leet of the Manor was formerly held. The most widespreading yew I have seen is a tree at Whittinghame, the seat of Mr. Arthur Balfour, which I measured in February 1905. It grows near the old tower, formerly the property of Sir Archibald Douglas, one of the conspirators of Darnley's murder, and, according to a local tradition, this was plotted under its shade. The tree is not remarkable for height or girth, the bole being only about 12 feet high and loj feet in girth, but spreads out into an immense drooping head, the branches descending to the ground and forming a complete circular cage or bower about 10 yards in diameter, inside which, Mr. Garrett, the gardener, told me that 300 school children had stood at once. The branches lie on the ground without rooting, so far as I could see, and spread so widely that I made the total circumference about no paces. Mr. Garrett, with a tape, made it 125 yards. The appearance of the tree from outside is fairly well shown in Plate 36. Another tree of this character, but not so large, grows at Crom Castle, on upper Lough Erne, and is described in the Ulster Journal of Archeology by Lord Erne. 1 It is said to resemble an enormous green mushroom in contour, and has evidently been a trained tree, its horizontal branches being supported on timber supports upheld by about 60 stout props. Its total height is given as 25 feet, with a bole of 6 feet and a girth of 12 feet, the branches being 250 feet in circumference. Yew trees in a wild state do not, as a rule, grow so large as those which are planted, probably because they are usually in poor rocky soil and crowded by other trees; but Lord Moreton tells me of a remarkably fine one which was shown him by Mr. Roderick Mackenzie, son of the owner of Fawley Court, in a wood on the Greenlands property on the Chiltern Hills. He described the tree as of the most symmetrical growth, and he guessed it to be nearer 70 feet than 60 feet high, with a girth of about 12 feet. YEW HEDGES AND TOPIARY WORK The yew, owing to the readiness with which it submits to pruning, forms an admirable hedge, and an excellent account of the conditions necessary to success in the making and keeping up of yew hedges is given by Mr. J. Clark in recent issues of the Garden? to which we refer our readers. One of the oldest and finest yew hedges in Great Britain is that at Wrest Park, 8 1 Cf. Loudon, loc. cit. 2081. 2 Garden, 1 905, Ixui. 54 and 136. 3 Card. Chron. 1 900, xxvii. 375.
124 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland which is said to be 350 years old. There is a very high one of semicircular form enclosing the approach to the front door of Earl Bathurst's house at Cirencester. Others 1 occur at Pewsey in Wiltshire, Melbourne in Derbyshire, Holme Lacy near Hereford, Hadham in Hertford, Albury Park near Guildford, etc. An interesting account of the use of yew in topiary work is given by Kent, 1 who gives two illustrations of the remarkable effects produced by this art at Elvaston Castle. Leven's Hall, 2 Westmoreland, is also noted for the extraordinary forms into which the yew has been forced to grow. In a recent work 8 by Elgood and Jekyll pictures are given of several remarkable effects produced by the yew, notably the Yew Alley at Rockingham, the Yew Walk at Crathes, and the Yew Arbour at Lyde. There are some remarkable clipped yews in the garden at Gwydyr Castle, in the valley of the Conway, a beautiful old place now belonging to Lord Carrington, which have been the subject of careful attention from Mr. Evans, the gardener, for forty years. The largest is in the form of an immense round-topped mushroom, 36 yards round and about 36 feet high, with a perfectly smooth, close, regular surface. In the west garden at the same place there is a double row of yews, eleven on each side, of the same form, but very much smaller. TIMBER Since foreign timber has almost entirely superseded home-grown wood, the remarkable qualities of this most durable and beautiful timber have been almost forgotten, though, if we may believe what Evelyn, Loudon, Walker, and other old authors tell us, it was formerly highly valued, not only for bow-making, but for all purposes where strength and durability, when exposed to wet, were required. At the present time, though I have made many inquiries, I cannot find a cabinetmaker in London who knows or uses the wood ; it is rarely to be found in timber yards, and I was told by one of the principal timber merchants in York that I was, in his forty years' experience, the first person who had ever asked for it. It has little or no selling value, and may be bought occasionally for about half the price of oak. In various old houses, however, examples may be found of its use for furniture, panelling, and inlaying, which show what the wood is worth, when well selected and thoroughly seasoned, to people who do not mind a little trouble. Evelyn says that for posts to be set in the ground and for everlasting axle-trees there is none to be compared to it, and that cabinetmakers and inlayers most gladly employ it. Loudon quotes Varennes de Feuilles, who states that the wood, before it has been seasoned and when cut into veneers and immersed some months in pond water, will take a purple-violet colour. 1 Veitch's Man. Conifem, 1 37 (1900). 2 Card. Chron. 1 874, p. 264. 3 Some English Gardens, pp. 34, 42, 107 (1904). Taxus Dr. Walker J speaks of the yew as a tree which grows well in the shade of rocks and precipices, especially near the sea-shore. "No timber is planted in Scotland that gives so high a price as that of yew and laburnum." He mentions a yew that grew on a sea-cliff, in the small stormy island of Bernera near the Sound of Mull, which, when cut into logs, loaded a large six-oared boat, and afforded timber to form a fine staircase in the house of Lochnell. Sir Charles Strickland tells me that yew wood which is occasionally dug up in the bogs and fens of East Yorkshire is of a pinkish grey colour, and the most beautiful English wood he knows, but the samples of it which Henry has procured in Ireland are much darker in colour. Miss Edwards states that in the Pyrenees water vessels are made of yew wood, which have the property of keeping the water cool in hot weather, and that there is a flourishing manufacture of such vessels bound with brass hoops at Osse. Marshall is quoted by Loudon to the effect that about 1796 yew trees at Boxhill were cut down and sold to cabinetmakers at high prices for inlaying, one tree being valued at ^"100, and half of it actually sold for £50. Boutcher says that, from his own experience, bedsteads made of yew wood will not be approached by bugs. Mathieu 2 states that in France the wood is sought for by turners, sculptors, and makers of instruments and toys. The thin straight shoots of the yew which are cut by gipsies in the south of England make most excellent whip sticks, lighter than, and quite as tough as holly. I believe that yew would also make first-rate handles for polo sticks and golf clubs, though makers of these articles do not as yet seem to have used it. Boulger 8 says that in the library of the India Office there is a Persian illuminated manuscript on thin sheets of yew, and it also makes very ornamental boards for bookbinding. As an example of what can be done with yew wood, I may refer to Macquoid's History of English Furniture, where a coloured illustration (plate iv.) is given of an extremely handsome armchair in Hornby Castle, the property of the Duke of Leeds. Macquoid says: "The date is about 1550. It is made of yew, which adds to its rarity, for up to this time it was practically penal to employ yew wood for any other purpose than the manufacture of the national weapon ; in this instance the wood has become close, as hard as steel, and of a beautiful dark amber colour." At Hatfield House, the historic mansion of the Marquess of Salisbury, the small drawing-room is panelled entirely with yew wood, the doors being also made of fine burry pieces, but the workmanship in this case is not perfect, and the colour of the wood has been spoilt by varnish. At Dallam Tower, Westmoreland, the seat of Sir Maurice Bromley-Wilson, the staircase is made of yew wood grown on the property. Trees are occasionally found in which the whole body of the log consists of small burry growths something like that of maple, and when this is mixed with contorted grain of various shades of pink the effect is very good. But such trees 1 Economical History of the Hebrides, vol. ii. pp. 205, 240(1812). " Flore Forestiere, 5 11 (1897). 3 Wood, 346 (1902).
Page 1 and 2:
»f rees Great Britain Ireland BY H
Page 3 and 4:
'.f
Page 5 and 6:
Trees of Great Britain Ireland BY H
Page 7 and 8:
PREFACE THE United Kingdom offers a
Page 9 and 10:
CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION ........ v
Page 11 and 12:
The Trees of Great Britain and Irel
Page 13 and 14:
The Trees of Great Britain and Irel
Page 15 and 16:
8 The Trees of Great Britain and Ir
Page 17 and 18:
12 The Trees of Great Britain and I
Page 19 and 20:
16 The Trees of Great Britain and I
Page 21 and 22: lo The Trees of Great Britain and I
Page 23 and 24: 2,4 The Trees of Great Britain and
Page 25 and 26: 28 The Trees of Great Britain and I
Page 27 and 28: 32, The Trees of Great Britain and
Page 29 and 30: SOPHORA Sophora, Linnaeus, Gen. PI.
Page 61 and 62: ioo The Trees of Great Britain and
Page 63 and 64: 104 The Trees of Great Britain and
Page 65 and 66: io8 The Trees of Great Britain and
Page 67 and 68: in The Trees of Great Britain and I
Page 69 and 70: n6 The Trees of Great Britain and I
Page 71: 120 The Trees of Great Britain and
Page 111 and 112: 2OO The Trees of Great Britain and
Page 113 and 114: a 7" KSrJi «£^«~ **». . "" ^ '"
Page 115 and 116: INARCHED BP;ECH AT ASIIRIDGE TLATE
Page 117 and 118: 13KECII WOOD AT SLINHON A ru 6.
Page 119 and 120: BEECH AT NEWBATTLE Pi .ATE 8.
Page 121 and 122: I BEECH AT GORDON CASTLE TLAI-K 10.
Page 123 and 124:
KING BEECH AT KNOLE I'LAIE 12.
Page 125 and 126:
AILANTHUS AT BELTON PLATE 14.
Page 127 and 128:
SOI'HORA AT CAMBRIDGE PLATE 16.
Page 129 and 130:
ARAUCARIA FOREST IN CM ILK I'l.MT.
Page 131 and 132:
ARAUCARIAS AT BEAUFORT
Page 133 and 134:
MAIDENHAIR T liEK AT FKOGMOKF. PLAT
Page 135 and 136:
TULIP TREE IN NORTH CAROLINA 1'LATE
Page 137 and 138:
TULIP TREE AT KILLERTON PLATE 26.
Page 139 and 140:
PLATE SERVIAN SPRUCE IN BOSNIA 28.
Page 141 and 142:
MENZIES' SPRUCE AT BEAUFORT PLATE 3
Page 143 and 144:
YEW AVENUE AT MIDIIURST PLATE 32.
Page 145 and 146:
i '*m i t /n b &; y'JM i /Jk, - •
Page 147 and 148:
•• *-' YEW AT WHITTIKGHAME PLAT
Page 149 and 150:
CRYPTOMERIA FOREST IN NORTH JAPAN 1
Page 151 and 152:
CRYPTOMEKIAS AT IMAICHI I'l.ATE 40.
Page 153 and 154:
CRYPTOMERIA AT HEMSTED PLATK 42.
Page 155 and 156:
PYRUS. PLATE 44.
Page 157 and 158:
SORB TREE AT ARLEV PLATE 46.
Page 159 and 160:
SERVICE TREE AT RICKMANSWORTH >.mmm
Page 161 and 162:
'^iji^m^^Jt^.^M. SERVICE TREE AT SY
Page 163 and 164:
DECIDUOUS CYPRESS IN VIRGINIA PLATE
Page 165 and 166:
DECIDUOUS CYPRESS AT SYON Tr.ATE 54
Page 167 and 168:
GIANT THUYA IN VANCOUVER'S ISLAND P
Page 169 and 170:
Plate 58 represents the trunk of wh
Page 171 and 172:
j« WESTERN HEMLOCK GROWING ON FALL
show all

the trees of great britain & ireland - Facsimile Books & other digitally ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?