Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/425

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Sequoia
697

planted in 1847 and 1848, one of which bore cones in 1862. In Fulmodestone Wood, Norfolk, a tree planted in 1855 was 67 feet by 8½ feet when Henry measured it in 1904. At The Coppice, Henley, at 300 feet elevation, a tree planted in 1864 was 73 feet high by 9g feet 5 inches in girth in 1905. At Bayfordbury, Herts, the best specimen is 74 feet by 10 feet 2 inches. At St. George's Hill, near Byfleet, a tree growing on Bagshot sand was in 1904 75 feet by 8 feet 3 inches.

In Gloucestershire there are good trees at Tortworth, at Highnam, at Williamstrip Park, and at Huntley Manor, where Prof. Somerville measured one in 1904 76 feet by 13 feet.

At Whitfield, Herefordshire, there is a group of eleven very fine trees on an area of only 25 yards square, of which the tallest is about 95 feet by 12 feet, and the others would average 80 to 90 feet in height, by about 9 feet in girth, and contain from 100 to 120 cubic feet per tree. An acre of such trees, as thickly grown as this, would produce from 8000 to 10,000 cubic feet, which, considering that their age is not more than about fifty years, is a very remarkable yield of timber.

At Penllergare, near Swansea, there is another somewhat similar group of twelve trees on a triangle of which the sides are only about twenty yards, in which the best tree was about 75 feet by 10 feet, and the others from 4 feet to 8 feet in girth; only one of these was a really bad tree, and two of them were forked.

At Penrhyn Castle there are several very fine trees, of which the best that | measured in 1906 was about go feet by 12 feet 3 inches, but others may be larger. At Coed Coch, Abergele, there is a splendid tree which Mr. A. Hunter, the gardener at this place, measured in 1905, when it was 90 feet in height and 124 feet in girth.

In Scotland the redwood seems to grow best in Perthshire, where all the largest that: I have seen are found, namely, one at Castle Menzies, which in 1892 was 74 feet by 4 feet 6 inches; and at Moncrieffe, where a tree, mentioned by Hunter as 42 feet by 4 feet 11 inches in 1883, was in 1907 about 65 feet by g feet, and though healthy looks as though it had lost its top more than once.

A tree at Falkland Palace, Fifeshire, said to be then one of the finest in Scotland, was in 1892 65 to 70 feet by 9 feet. At Smeaton-Hepburn, East Lothian, in 1902, there was a tree 57 feet by 9 feet, planted in 1844, which had lost its top on several occasions. At Castle Kennedy the wind is evidently too severe for it, as the largest measured by Henry in 1904 was only 39 feet by 7 feet.

In Ireland the redwood has attained large dimensions in those districts which have a mild climate and a heavy rainfall. In Queen's County, where the rainfall is only moderate and sharp frosts occur, it has done badly, and is in marked contrast to the splendid Wellingtonias which are growing beside it in several places.

At Castlemartyr, Cork, there are several large specimens, one, about 70 feet in height, being in 1907 16½ feet in girth at 5 feet from the ground. At Fota, in the same county, a tree in 1903 measured go feet high by 10 feet in girth. This was reported[1] in 1891 to be 75 feet by 7½ feet. At Coollattin, in Wicklow, there

  1. Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 549 (1892).