Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol01.djvu/98

70 Mr. Bullen says that it grows well in heavy clay in the damp and smoky climate of Glasgow, and a tree is mentioned at the Grove, Stanmore, on damp, gravelly clay, which in 1879 was 77 feet high by 9½ in girth.

The tulip tree has been much recommended for planting in towns, and specimens may be seen in London at Victoria Park, Manor House Gardens, Lincoln's Inn Fields, Waterloo Park, Clissold Park, etc.

Mr. Hovey says that in America it is not so much planted for ornament as it deserves to be, presumably because American planters desire a quick effect, and that it does not transplant well after it is 4-6 feet high; but that it grows on gravel, sand, peat, or clay, and is not very particular in that climate as to soil. He has known it grow 30 feet high and more in 20 years.

It is very liable to be attacked by rabbits, which eat the bark even of large trees, and I have seen several which have been killed or much injured in this way.

Though this tree is one of the handsomest when in flower, stateliest in habit, and most beautiful in the autumn tints of its leaves, it is not now planted in England nearly as much as it was a hundred years and more ago, having, like so many other fine hard-wooded trees, been supplanted by conifers and flowering shrubs, which are easier to raise and more profitable to the nurserymen, who now appear to cater rather for the requirements of owners of villas and small gardens than for those of larger places. But though the tulip tree loves a hot summer, it endures the most severe winter frosts of our climate without injury, and in a suitable soil grows in some parts of the southern counties, after it is once established, to a great size.

The largest living specimen I know of in England is at Woolbeding, in Sussex, the seat of Colonel Lascelles, and measures 105 feet by 17. Though not so perfect in shape as some others, it is a very beautiful tree, and seemed, when I saw it in 1903, to be in good health. It grows on a deep, alluvial, sandy soil, which suits plane trees and rhododendrons very well (Plate 25).

There was even a larger one at Stowe near Buckingham, which when I saw it in 1905 was dead, apparently barked at the base by rabbits. It was at least 107 feet high, with a bole of about 30 feet, and a girth of 1 feet at 5 feet, and 21 feet 4 inches at the ground.

Another very fine tree is at Leonardslee, near Horsham, the seat of Sir Edmund Loder, Bart., also in Sussex, and is growing at an elevation of 400-500 feet on soil which, though very favourable to rhododendrons, is too poor to grow either oak, birch, or larch to the same size in the same time. Sir E. Loder tells me that the tree cannot be more than 90 years old, and it is now 97 feet high, with a perfectly clean, straight trunk 25-30 feet high, which towers above all the native trees of the district (Plate 27).

At Horsham Park, the residence of R.H. Hurst, Esq., is a very fine and symmetrical tree which I measured rather hastily, as over 100 feet in height by 15 in girth.