and another at Glendoune, Ayrshire, which was 9 feet 4 inches in girth in 1898.
In Ireland there are many fine trees, the tallest in the British Isles in 1891, of those reported at the Conifer Conference,’ being one at Shanbally in Tipperary, which was then 80 feet in height by 8} feet in girth.
The finest seen by Henry is growing at Ballykilcavan, Queen’s County, the seat of Sir Hunt H. A. Johnson-Walsh, Bart., and measures 95 feet in height and 10 feet 10 inches in girth. At Brockley Park, a few miles distant, the seat of W. Young, Esq., a tree measures 73 feet by 10 feet 9 inches. At Emo Park, in the same county, there is a fine avenue, though the trees are growing on poor shallow limestone soil. They are planted about 35 yards apart, and average 70 feet high by 10 feet in girth, On the lawn at this place there is a finer tree, 81 feet high by 10 feet 4 inches; and beside it, a redwood, planted at the same time, is only 50 feet high and doing badly.
At Coollattin, Wicklow, a tree measured, in 1906, 78 feet by 12 feet. It produces fruit freely, but the seed does not mature and when sown has never produced seedlings. At Churchill, Armagh, a tree, planted in a bog, was in 1905 67 feet by 12 feet, and looked very healthy. Two trees, 77 feet and 73 feet high, were reported” to be growing in 1897 at Fassaroe, near Bray, in Wicklow.
The largest Wellingtonia of which I have heard on the Continent is a tree near the Hotel Bonnemaison at Bagnéres de Luchon (Haute Garonne), of which a large photograph has been kindly sent me by the Hon. W. Rothschild. This splendid tree measures rather over 91 high by 25 feet in girth at the ground. A tree at Locarno,® on the northern end of Lake Maggiore, has attained, in 17 years after planting, a height of 72 feet and a girth of 9 feet 2 inches. The species appears to be quite hardy in the severe climate of Munich, as Dr. Mayr says that at Grafrath one only 10 years old was nearly 19 feet high, and had endured a frost of -25° Cent. without any injury; though in the winter of 1902-1903, when the thermometer fell to - 28° Cent., the branches on the sunny side of the tree were somewhat browned. Trees, however, at Berlin,* which had attained 30 to 40 feet in height, succumbed to the severe cold of the winter 1893–1894.
Timber
The timber is very light, soft, weak, and brittle, varying in colour from pale yellowish-brown to rich red-brown, with whitish sapwood, which occupies one to two hundred rings. In native specimens these are extremely close, fifteen or twenty to the inch in some cases,
The wood is said to be very durable in contact with the ground, and is largely used for making vine stakes and for shingles, also to some extent for building, fencing, and box-making. So far as I know it is never imported to Europe, and has no commercial value except locally.
1 Journ. Roy. Hort, Soc. xiv. 571 (1892).
2 Gard. Chron. xxii. 385 (1897).
3 Christ, Flore de la Suisse, 77 (1907).
4 Bolle, in Garden and Forest, 1894, Pp. 95.
