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14 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland In Italy it is found only in the mountains; in the Apennines it is one of the dominant trees at from 3000 to 5000 feet. In the Sila mountains of Calabria, Elwes found it covering the mountains above the limit of chestnut, at from 3000 to 5000 feet and upwards. It is usually coppiced for charcoal and firewood; but it attains a considerable size, the largest measured being about 90 feet by 10-12 in girth. Here it is often mixed with the Calabrian pine. In Sicily it finds its southern limit on Mount Etna, where it ascends to 7200 feet. In Spain the beech occurs in the Pyrenees and in the northern provinces only, its most southerly known habitat being in lat 40 10' east of Cuen9a. In Portugal it has not, so far as we know, been recorded to exist. The finest natural beech forests seen by us in Europe are on the northern slopes of the Balkans, where it grows as pure forest from near the foot of the mountains up to about 4000 feet. The trees are very straight and clean, but are being rapidly felled in those places where they are most accessible. Boissier l says that the beech occurs in northern Greece on Mounts Pindus and Pelion. Elwes found it in Macedonia, on the north side of Mount Olympus.2 (A. H. and H. J. E.) CULTIVATION Seed is without doubt the best means of reproducing the tree, and I am inclined to think that the best and cleanest trunks are produced by seedlings which have never been transplanted, but opinions differ on this question. Seed is only pro duced in quantity at intervals of several years, and in some years a large proportion of the seeds, even in districts where the beech grows well, are mere empty husks. The season of 1890 was probably the best for beech-mast in England which had occurred for many years, and I took particular pains, by enclosing certain spots where I found a number of germinating seeds in the following April, to protect them. But a severe frost, which occurred in the middle of May, destroyed all or nearly all the seedlings in the open, and those whose germination had been delayed by dense shade, or a thick covering of leaves, mostly withered away in the dry summer which ensued, before their rootlets had become established in the ground. Notwithstanding this, in most woods where rabbits, pheasants, and wood-pigeons are not so abundant as to devour all the seedlings and seeds, a good number of seedling beech of the year 1901 may still be found, and in the New Forest and elsewhere the ground in suitable spots is covered with seedlings. Whether the seed should be sown when ripe or kept until the following spring is a question which must be decided by local conditions and experience, but where the danger of late spring frosts is great, I should prefer keeping it in an airy, dry loft spread thinly on a floor until April, or even the first week in May, as if February and March are mild, it will germinate in March and run great risk of being frozen in April or May. On March 11, 1901, I found a quantity of 1 Flora Orientalis, iv. 1175. 2 Halacsy, Consp. Flor. Gnzctz, iii. 124 (1904), says that the beech forms in Greece large woods in the mountains, and gives its distribution as follows :—Thessaly—Mountains of Pindus, Chassia, Olympus, Ossa, and Pelion; Acarnania—Mount Kravara; /Etolia—Mount Oxyes. Fagus beech-mast on the lawn at Heythrop Park which had already germinated and had the radicle protruding as much as % inch. I gathered a basketful and sowed it two days later, covering the drills with beech-leaf mould. Most of this was above ground in April, and where not protected by branches over the beds, was destroyed by frost. Stored seed sown at the same time was almost all devoured by mice and rooks, which seemed to follow the drills with great care, whilst seed sown broadcast on a freshly ploughed surface and covered by one turn of a harrow, produced a certain number, but still a very small proportion of plants. These were, in June 1904, still very small and stunted, not more than 3-5 inches high, whilst seedlings of the same age raised on good rich sandy soil in an Edinburgh nursery were from i|- to 2 feet high. In the autumn of 1902 I found it impossible to procure any beech-mast in Great Britain, and after many inquiries procured some German seed early in April. Part of this was dibbled in a field of wheat, but so few plants could be found when the wheat was cut that the experiment was a practical failure. I sowed a part of this seed early in May in the garden, which germinated in June, and thus escaping spring frosts it grew without a check, and the seedlings were 4 to 6 inches high in the autumn. Judging from these results it appears to me that, except in woods or where there is shelter, it is not economically desirable to raise beech from seed where it is to grow, and that spring sowing is preferable to autumn. Seedlings are easy to transplant if their roots are not allowed to become dry, and the percentage of loss in 20,000 sent to me from Edinburgh in the winter 1902-3 was not more than 5 to 10 per cent. But if the trees are older and the roots are bad or have been heated in transit, or exposed too long to the air, the loss will be very great; and in most cases I should not plant out on a large scale trees of over two years old two years transplanted, though for specimen or lawn trees they may be safely moved when 6 to 10 feet high, or even more, if properly transplanted every two years. SOIL AND SITUATION Though the beech will grow on almost any soil except pure peat and heavy wet clay, it comes to its greatest size and perfection on calcareous soil or on deep sandy loam, and usually in pure woods unmixed with other trees. The finest beech woods in England are, or rather were, in the Chiltern Hills, Bucks, in the neighbouring counties of Oxford and Herts; in the valleys of the Cotswold Hills ; and in Sussex. Sir John Dorington, M.P., tells me that he cut 2 acres i rood 13 poles of beech on a steep bank opposite his house at Lypiatt Park, Stroud, in 1897, growing on thin oolite limestone brash, which at is. 2d. per foot produced ,£562, equal to about 9634 feet. And off 4 acres of the same wood in 1875 he sold beech to the value of ^iioo, being at the rate of ^275 per acre. This was supposed to be about 150 years old, and is the best actual return of value from timber on such land which I know of. He also bought a beech wood of 26 acres growing on similar soil in 1898, on which the timber, supposed to be about seventy years old, was valued at ^2200, equal to ^85 per acre. He cut ^"600 worth of thinnings out of it the year
16 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland following ; and as the trees are growing fast, considers that it might now be valued at the same price per acre. Sir John considers, from experience in his own plantations, that planted beech will do as well as when naturally seeded. His old woodman, now dead, was for long of a contrary opinion, but changed his mind latterly from his own experience. It is necessary to say something about the actual conditions and returns from the Buckinghamshire beech woods, which have been held up by some writers as an example of what may be done by following the system known asjardinage in France, which consists in thinning out the saleable trees every ten or twelve years and allowing natural seedlings to come up in their places. During a visit of the Scottish Arboricultural Society on July 30, 1903, to this district, in which I took part, it was stated by one of the principal land agents in the district that £2 per acre was a common return over an average of years on woods managed on this system, which seems to have grown up during the last sixty years, partly through the legal disability of the owners to make clear fellings, and partly owing to the regular demand for clean beechwood of moderate size for chair-making. But what I saw myself led me to believe that though such a return may have been obtained for a short period on the best class of beech woods, it is not likely to continue, and that if an owner had a free hand and was not liable for waste, clear felling of the mature timber about once in 60-100 years would probably in the long- run be a better system. And this opinion was confirmed by Mr. George James, agent for the Hampden estate, who thinks that 153. per acre, which is about the average rateable value of these woods, is as much as they are actually worth, and that when you get fine timber clean and well grown, as on Mr. Drake's estate at Amersham, many natural seedlings do not occur, but that on Earl Howe's estate at Dunn where, forty years ago, all or nearly all of the timber was cut, there is a good growth of young seedlings. Professor Fisher of Cooper's Hill has written a very instructive article 1 on the Chiltern Hill beech woods, in which he states that these are probably the northern and western British limit of the indigenous beech forest, which was probably eradicated during the glacial period in the north of England; though remains found in the submarine forest-bed at Cromer, in Norfolk, prove that it existed before this period farther east. He quotes measurements taken by Mr. A. S. Hobart Hampden, now director of the Forest School at Dehra Dun, India, which show that on the average it takes ninety years in this district for beech to attain 3 feet in girth at breast height, and that a full crop of seed cannot be expected from trees much younger than eighty years when grown in dense order. He agrees with me that in many of the woods, including those which belong to Eton College, over- thinning has been prevalent, and states that rabbits and brambles have in many cases prevented the natural regeneration from being as complete as it must be to keep such woods in profitable condition under the decennial selection system. 2 And as 1 Land Agents Record, April 9 and 16, 1904. 2 A paper by Mr. L. S. Wood, in the Trans. Eng. Arbor. Soc. v. 285 (1903), gives many particulars of the beech woods in this district. Fagus 1 7 the furniture factories of High Wycombe are now largely supplied with American birch and other foreign timber, which can be imported at a cheaper rate than beech is locally worth, I am inclined to think that where these woods have become too thin to be profitable, they would pay better if the seeding of ash which grows well on this land though not to the largest size was encouraged, and the vacant spaces filled up with larch, which, when mixed with beech, usually keeps healthy and grows to a larger size than it does alone. It is probable, however, that as our coal supplies diminish, the value of firewood in England will increase, and as beech is one of the best firewoods we have, and one of the most economical to convert into suitable sizes, I should advise its being more largely planted in districts where coal is distant and costly. As a nurse to other forest trees, especially larch and oak, it has a value greater than any deciduous tree, because, if not allowed to overtop its neighbours, its shade and the decay of its leaves preserve the soil in a cool, moist, and fertile condition. On poor calcareous and chalk soil it is specially valuable, and should be planted in mixture with most kinds of other trees, provided rabbits can be permanently excluded; but on account of its thin bark it is never safe in a deep snow or in hard winters from rabbits, which will bark the roots of trees 100 years old as readily as young trees. The distance apart at which beech should be left in plantations, must depend on the goodness of the soil and on the size at which the trees can be most pro fitably cut. The better the land the thicker it may stand, but on really poor soil it grows so slowly if crowded, that as soon as it has attained a sufficient height and cleaned itself from branches up to 30-50 feet, it should be thinned to about 150 trees or even less to the acre. And I have often observed that on soils which are not naturally favourable for beech, it will not under any circumstances grow so straight and clean as in woods where natural regeneration is easy. Notwithstanding what Loudon and some German foresters say about the beech being unfit for coppice-wood, I can show beech stools of considerable age which have been regularly cut over at intervals of about eighteen years for at least a century; whilst the growth of shoots from the stool on the dry rocky bank in Chat- combe Wood, near Seven Springs, on the Cotswold Hills, is faster than that of ash similarly treated. In the mountains of Calabria also, I have seen hillsides covered with beech scrub which appeared to have been coppiced for firewood for a very long period. Therefore, in cases where the beech has been planted merely as a nurse to oak or other trees, and there is no deciduous tree better adapted to this purpose, I should not hesitate to cut over the trees if they seemed likely to smother their neighbours, with the expectation of getting a quantity of excellent firewood or small poles fit for turning, fifteen to twenty years later. As a clipped hedge the beech is useful, but does not grow so fast at first as the hornbeam. An excellent example of this fact may be seen near the entrance to Dr. Watney's place at Buckholt, near Pangbourne, where the two are growing in the same hedge; the beech treated in this way keeps its leaves all the winter and makes good shelter. 1 1 Cf. Loudon, loc, fit. p. 1965. I D
Page 1 and 2: »f rees Great Britain Ireland BY H
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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
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Page 15 and 16: 8 The Trees of Great Britain and Ir
Page 17: 12 The Trees of Great Britain and I
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Page 25 and 26: 28 The Trees of Great Britain and I
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Page 29 and 30: SOPHORA Sophora, Linnaeus, Gen. PI.
Page 57 and 58: 92, The Trees of Great Britain and
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
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n6 The Trees of Great Britain and I
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120 The Trees of Great Britain and
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132, The Trees of Great Britain and
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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
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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
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