wished to establish a plantation by sowing, and they were the only species of which the plants showed up well in the lines the first summer. As they were much too thick in the rows, about 10,000 were transplanted the following winter, when 4 to 8 inches high, and these grew so fast in the nursery that in two years more I had trees 4 to 6 feet high, whilst those which were left where they were sown, after four years’ growth had made very little progress, few exceeding 12 to 18 inches in height, and many remaining so stunted that they could hardly be recognised among the grass.
Though rabbits will not eat it so readily as beech or ash, yet where they are found, the sycamore is not safe from their attacks until it is a foot or more in diameter ; after which I have not seen them touch it; and in a park, deer, however hungry, do not bark this tree, though they will peel the branches when cut. It shoots freely from the stool when treated as coppice wood, and on dry soil produces a much greater bulk of poles than ash or lime will do, but in this form is not so valuable as ash or oak, because the poles are neither strong nor durable, and are not used for hurdle-making.
Remarkable Trees
Among the many large sycamores which I have measured, it is hard to say which is the finest, but in England I think the palm must be awarded to a tree near the Marquess of Ripon’s house at Studley Royal, Yorkshire. This tree is about 104 feet high, by 17½ feet in girth. It has a very large burr close to the ground, where it is 29½ feet round, and a clear bole of about 30 feet.
An almost equally fine tree, growing in front of the Earl of Darnley’s house at Cobham Hall, Kent, was figured by Strutt, plate xxx. He gave its height as 94 feet, its girth at the ground 27 feet, and its cubic contents 450 feet. When I measured it in 1905, I found that it was about 105 feet by 17 feet 9 inches at 5 feet up, and still quite healthy. At Penshurst, in the same county, there is a fine tree 104 feet by 13 feet 10 inches.
The tree figured in Plate 179 grows on my own lawn, constantly in sight as I write, and though not quite so large as some others, is still a beautifully-shaped tree, 100 feet by 15 feet. Its top, I grieve to say, has been dying back for some years. At Lypiatt Park, near Stroud, there is a fine tree close below the house, of which Sir John Dorington has sent me a photograph. It measures about go feet by 18 feet, dividing near the base into three main stems.
At Essendon Place, Herts, Mr. H. Clinton Baker measured a tree in 1906 as 94 feet high by 9 feet 9 inches in girth. At Fawley Court, near Henley, close to the Thames, in a dense plantation, a tree, estimated by Henry in 1907 to be 100 feet or more in height, was 12 feet 8 inches in girth. At Shiplake House, also near Henley, there is a widespreading tree, 85 feet high and 1o feet 3 inches in girth.
At Lowther Castle, Westmoreland, the seat of the Earl of Lonsdale, there is an immense tree no less than 19 feet 9 inches in girth, but not so tall as,
