seasons the plantation was full of small birds, which were apparently feeding on the larvæ.
Remarkable Trees
To enumerate all the larches which are remarkable for their size and age in Great Britain would be impossible, as in almost all places of sufficient age or importance this was one of the first exotic conifers to be planted, but it will suffice to say that many still exist in a sound condition which are 150 years or more old and exceed 100 feet in height. The tallest trees I have ever heard of were felled about the year 1890 in a deep valley near Croft Castle, Herefordshire, the seat of Capt. H. Kevill Davies, which I visited in 1904 under the guidance of Mr. Openshaw, who assured me that some trees there were 135 feet long at the point at which the tops were cut off, with a diameter of 6 inches. This was confirmed by the woodman on the estate, H. Prince, who estimated the tops to have been 10 to 15 feet long, making the trees nearly if not quite 150 feet high.[1] The soil is Old Red Sandstone and the situation very sheltered. I have a record of a tree measuring 134 feet by 1o feet 8 inches which grew in Yorkshire on Lord Masham's estate, and at Penrhyn Castle, North Wales, Henry measured a tree 118 feet by 7 feet 10 inches, and I saw another at the same place growing in a low, very wet, almost swampy situation very near the sea among hardwoods which was about go feet by 12 feet, and judging from the rings of felled trees lying near it was about 130 years old. This is remarkable from the fact of the conditions of growth being so extremely unlike those which are usually considered natural to and suitable for the larch, and I can only explain them by the fact that the natural drainage was better than it seemed. Certainly I would not expect larch now planted in such situations to escape disease.
At Ombersley Court, Worcestershire, the seat of Lord Sandys, a tree is growing on the lawn in deep red loam, which exceeds in girth any larch that I know of in England. It is no less than 15 feet 7 inches at five feet from the ground, though it falls away rapidly higher up, and is only about 80 feet high, and has very large and wide-spreading branches.
At Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire, the seat of Lord Leigh, there are some very large and picturesque larches, near the park-keeper's house, which look as old as any in England. One of them, measuring 14 feet 8 inches in girth, has a mass of rugged branches, some of which touch the ground, where they seem to have taken root. Another is about 80 feet by 14 feet. In the grounds of Warwick Castle there is a group of seven ancient larches, as well as one in the castle yard whose top curves into a drooping form.
In Gloucestershire there are many fine trees of this species on the Cotswold hills, among which may be mentioned two near the Woodhouse in Earl Bathurst's woods (Plate 98). These are growing on dry and rather shallow soil, overlying Oolite rock, and are over 100 feet high by 11 feet and 12 feet in girth respectively.
- ↑ Mr. T.E. Groom of Hereford writes to me that he measured several of these trees himself, and has a clear recollection that two of them were over 140 feet long as topped for sale, where they would be 5 or 6 inches in diameter. The quarter-girth under bark half-way up was, however, only about 14 inches, which gives their cubic content as about 190 feet.
