As showing the rate of growth of the beech in Co. Galway, a beech measured by Lord Clonbrock at Clonbrock was 11 feet 3 inches in girth in 1871, and 15 feet in 1903. A beech hedge at Kilruddery, Co. Wicklow, the seat of Lord Meath, said to be 300 years old, was measured by Henry in 1904, when it was 18 feet through and 29 feet high. It is clipped regularly, and forms a dense, impenetrable mass.
Beech Coccus
We are indebted to Mr. R. Newstead of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, for particulars of the coccus which in some seasons, and in certain parts of England, has been of late years very injurious to the beech. A fuller account of this insect has been written by him in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. 1900, vol. xxiii. p. 249, and in a leaflet recently published by the Board of Agriculture. From this we take the following precis:—
The trunks and, less frequently, the main branches of good-sized beech trees are often covered, to a greater or less extent, with irregular spots of a white cottony substance. The latter is really the covering of white felted wax fibres secreted by the felted beech coccus (Cryptococcus fagi, Bärensprung), a minute, hemispherical, lemon-yellow insect, about one twenty-fifth of an inch long, without legs, but furnished on the underside with a well-developed beak, which it buries in the bark for the purpose of sucking up the juices of the tree. When once a tree is attacked the number of individuals of the pest becomes in time so great that it is doubtful whether a badly-infected tree ever recovers unless active measures be taken against the insect. The waxy covering of the latter is sufficient to protect it against the effects of any of the insecticides usually applied by spraying, and its habit of preferring the deepest part of the fissures in the bark makes it difficult to remove with certainty. The only remedy at all likely to succeed is that of thoroughly scrubbing the bark with a stiff brush and soap and water, the latter mixed in the proportion of half a pound of soft soap to each gallon of water; and the success of this treatment depends for the most part on the amount of care taken to dislodge the insects by means of the brush.
Timber
The timber of the beech is not valued so highly in England as abroad, where it is considered as the best fuel in general use, and is little used in carpentry or building, as it is hard, brittle, and liable to be attacked by beetles. It weighs when green about 65 lbs. to the cube foot, when dry about 50. Its durability is said to be increased by seasoning it in water, and it is more durable when entirely under water than most timbers, being highly recommended by Matthews and Laslett for planking the sides and bottoms of ships. In France it is used, when creosoted, for railway sleepers, but requires more than twice as much creosote to preserve it as oak does, and is not used in England, so far as I know, for this purpose. It is also used for tool handles, rollers, butchers' blocks, brush heads, planes, and general turnery, but decays rapidly when exposed to the weather.
