attaining the height of thirty feet in twelve years, and rising to sixty
feet in height, or upwards, even in inferior soils; while, in favourable
situations, it will reach the height of eighty feet, or upwards. "The
bark is thick and full of cracks. The branches are numerous, spreading
widely, silky when young. The leaves are all alternate, on shortish
foot-stalks, lanceolate, broadest a little above the middle, pointed,
tapering towards each end, regularly and acutely serrated, the lowest
serrature most glandular; both sides of a grayish, somewhat glaucous,
green, beautifully silky, with close-pressed silvery hairs, very dense
and brilliant on the uppermost, or youngest leaves; the lowermost on
each branch, like the bracts, are smaller, more obtuse, and greener.
Stipules variable, either roundish or oblong, small, often wanting.
Catkins on short stalks, with three or four spreading bracts, for the
most part coming from the leaves, but a few more often appear after
midsummer; they are all cylindrical, rather slender, obtuse, near one
and a half inch long. Scales fringed, rounded at the end; those of the
barren catkins narrower towards the base; of the fertile, dilated and
convolute in that part. Two obtuse glands, one before, the other behind
the stamens. Filaments hairy in their lower part. Anthers roundish,
yellow. Ovary very nearly sessile, green, smooth, ovate, lanceolate,
bluntish, longer than the scale. Style short. Stigmas short, thickish,
cloven. Capsule ovate, brown, smooth, rather small."
The Goat Willow, Large-leafed Sallow, or Saugh, _S. caprea_, is
distinguished from all the other Willows by its large ovate, or
sometimes orbicular ovate leaves, which are pointed, serrated, and waved
on the margin; beneath they are of a pale glaucous colour, and clothed
with down, but dark green above; varying in length from two to three
inches. Foot-stalks stout, downy. Stipules crescent-shaped. Capsules
lanceolate, swelling. Style very short. Buds glabrous. Catkins very
thick, oval, numerous, nearly sessile, expanding much earlier than the
foliage. The ovary is stalked, silky, and ovate in form; the stigmas are
undivided, and nearly sessile. In favourable situations this tree
attains a height of from thirty to forty feet, with a trunk from one to
two feet in diameter. It seldom, however, possesses any considerable
length of clean stem, as the branches which form the head generally
begin to divide at a moderate height, and diverging in different
directions, give it the bearing and appearance of a compact,
round-headed tree. It grows in almost all soils and situations, but
prefers dry loams, and in such attains its greatest size.
There are very few existing Willow-trees remarkable for age or size. The
one most worthy of note is the Abbot's Willow, at Bury St. Edmunds. It
grows on the banks of the Lark, a small river running through the park
of John Benjafield, Esq. It is seventy-five feet in height, and the stem
is eighteen feet and a half in girth; it then divides in a very
picturesque manner into two large limbs, one fifteen and the other
twelve feet in girth. It shadows an area of ground two hundred and four
feet in diameter, and the tree contains four hundred and forty feet of
solid timber.
The uses of the Willow are perhaps equal to those of any other species
of our native trees; it is remarked that it supports the banks of
rivers, dries marshy soil, supplies bands or withies, feeds a great
variety of insects, rejoices bees, yields abundance of fine wood,
affords nourishment to cattle with its leaves, and yields a substitute
for Jesuit's bark; to which Evelyn adds, all kinds of basket-work,
pillboxes, cart saddle-trees, gun-stocks, and half-pikes, harrows,
shoemakers' lasts, forks, rakes, ladders, poles for hop vines, small
casks and vessels, especially to preserve verjuice in. To which may be
added cricket-bats, and numerous other articles where lightness and
toughness of wood are desirable. The wood of the Willow has also the
property of whetting knives like a whetstone; therefore all knife-boards
should be made of this tree in preference to any other.
From the earliest times, the various species of Willow have been made
use of by man for forming articles of utility; but as an account of our
principal forest-trees is the object of this work, it would be out of
place to describe those species which are cultivated for coppice-wood,
hoops, basket-rods, or hedges. We may, however, remark that the shields
of the ancients were made of wicker work, covered with ox-hides; that
the ancient Britons served up their meats in osier baskets or dishes,
and that these articles were greatly admired by the Romans.
A basket I by painted Britons wrought,
And now to Rome's imperial city brought.
And for want of proper tools for sawing trees into planks, the Britons
and other savages made boats of osiers covered with skins, in which they
braved the ocean in quest of plunder:--
The bending Willow into barks they twined,
Then lined the work with spoils of slaughtered kind;
Such are the floats Venetian fishers know,
Where in dull marshes stands the settling Po,
On such to neighbouring Gaul, allured by gain,
The bolder Briton crossed the swelling main.
Rowe's _Lucan_.
[Illustration: THE YEW-TREE.]
THE YEW-TREE.
[_Taxus[AB] baccata._ Nat. Ord.--_Taxaceæ_; Linn.--_Dioec. Monad._]
[AB] _Generic characters. Barren_ flowers in oval catkins, with crowded,
peltate scales, bearing 3 to 8 anther-cells. _Stamens_ numerous. _Style_
1. _Anthers_ peltate, with several lobes. _Fertile_ flowers scaly below.
_Ovule_ surrounded at the base by a ring, which becomes a fleshy
cup-shaped disk surrounding the seed.
The Berried or Common Yew is indigenous to most parts of Europe, from
58° N. lat. to the Mediterranean Sea; also to the east and west of Asia;
and of North America. It is found in every part of Britain, and also in
Ireland: on limestone cliffs, and in mountainous woods, in the south of
England; on schistose, basaltic, and other rocks, in the north of
England: and in Scotland, it is particularly abundant on the north side
of the mountains near Loch Lomond. In Ireland, it grows in the crevices
of rocks, at an elevation of 1200 feet above the level of the sea; but
at that height it assumes the appearance of a low shrub. The Yew is
rather a solitary than a social tree; being generally found either alone
or with trees of a different species.
The Yew-tree rises from the ground with a short but straight trunk,
which sends out, at the height of three or four feet, numerous branches,
spreading out nearly horizontally, and forms a head of dense foliage.
When full-grown it attains the height of from thirty to fifty feet. The
trunk and bark are channelled longitudinally, and are generally rough,
from the protruding remains of shoots which have decayed and dropped
off. The bark is smooth, thin, of a brown colour, and scales off like
the pine. The branches are thickly clad with leaves, which are
two-rowed, crowded, naked, linear, entire, very slightly revolute, and
about one inch long; very dark green, smooth, and shining above; paler,
with a prominent midrib, beneath; terminating in a point. The flowers,
which appear in May, are solitary, proceeding from a scaly axillary bud;
those of the barren plant are pale brown, and discharge a very abundant
yellowish white pollen. The fertile flowers are green, and in form not
unlike a young acorn. Fruit drooping, consisting of a sweet, internally
glutinous, scarlet berry, open at the top, inclosing a brown oval nut,
unconnected with the fleshy part. The kernels of these nuts are not
deleterious, as supposed by many, but may be eaten, and they possess a
sweet and agreeable nutty flavour.
[Illustration: Foliage, Leaves, and Fruit of _T. baccata_.]
Of all trees the Yew is the most tonsile. Hence all the indignities it
formerly suffered. Everywhere it was cut and metamorphosed into such a
variety of deformities, that we could hardly conceive that it had any
natural shape, or the power which other trees possess, of hanging
carelessly and negligently. Yet it has this power in a very eminent
degree; and in a state of nature, except in exposed situations, is
perhaps one of the most beautiful evergreens we have. It is now,
however, seldom found in a state of perfection. Not ranking among
timber-trees, it is thus in a degree unprivileged, and unprotected by
forest laws, and has often been made booty of by those who durst not lay
violent hands on the oak or the ash. But still, in many parts of the New
Forest, some noble specimens of it are left. There is one which was
esteemed by Gilpin to be a tree of peculiar beauty. It immediately
divides into several massy limbs, each of which, hanging in grand loose
foliage, spreads over a large compass of ground, and yet the whole tree
forms a close compact body; that is, its boughs are not so separated as
to break into distinct parts. It is not equal in size to the Yew at
Fotheringal, near Taymouth, in Scotland, which measures fifty-six and a
half feet in circumference, nor to many others on record; but is of
sufficient size for all the purposes of landscape, and is in point of
picturesque beauty probably equal to any of them. It stands near the
left bank of Lymington river, as you look towards the sea, between
Roydon Farm and Boldre Church.
So long as the taste prevailed for metamorphosing the Yew into
obelisks, pyramids, birds, and beasts, it was very commonly planted near
houses. Now it is nearly banished from the precincts of our residences
and pleasure-grounds; not, it would appear, from any real objection that
can be urged either against its form or the effect it produces, but from
now considering it as a funereal tree, and associating it with scenes of
melancholy and the grave, a feeling doubtless arising from many of our
most venerable and celebrated specimens growing in ancient church-yards.
The origin of these locations is now considered to have arisen from
churches having been erected on the sites of Druidical places of worship
in Yew groves, or near old Yew-trees. Hence the planting of Yews in
church-yards is a custom of heathen origin, which was ingrafted on
Christianity on its introduction into Britain.
The sepulchral character of the Yew is thus referred to by Sir Walter
Scott, in _Rokeby_:--
But here 'twixt rock and river grew
A dismal grove of sable Yew.
With whose sad tints were mingled seen
The blighted fir's sepulchral green.
Seemed that the trees their shadows cast,
The earth that nourished them to blast;
For never knew that swathy grove
The verdant hue that fairies love,
Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower,
Arose within its baleful bower.
The dank and sable earth receives
Its only carpet from the leaves,
That, from the withering branches cast,
Bestrewed the ground with every blast.
And Kirke White, in a fragment written in Wilford church-yard, near
Nottingham, on occasion of his recovering from sickness, thus introduces
it:--
Here would I wish to sleep.--This is the spot
Which I have long marked out to lay my bones in;
Tired out and wearied with the riotous world,
Beneath this Yew I would be sepulchred.
While in that beautiful and pathetic Elegy of Gray's, which is familiar
to every mind in Britain, we read:--
Beneath----------that Yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
Poor Carrington has the following lines on the Yew-tree, in a poem
entitled _My Native Village_. The author is buried in the little quiet
church-yard of Combehay, a sequestered village at a short distance from
Bath. It is situated in a deep and unfrequented valley, where some of
the finest and most luxuriant scenery in the west of England may be
found. It was chosen, his son tells us, because it is a spot which, when
living, he would have loved full well:--
Tree of the days of old--time-honour'd Yew!
Pride of my boyhood--manhood--age, Adieu!
Broad was thy shadow, mighty one, but now
Sits desolation on thy leafless bough!
That huge and far-fam'd trunk, scoop'd out by age,
Will break, full soon, beneath the tempest's rage:
Few are the leaves lone sprinkled o'er thy breast,
There's bleakness, blackness on thy shiver'd crest!
When Spring shall vivify again the earth,
And yon blest vale shall ring with woodland mirth,
Morning, noon, eve,--no bird with wanton glee
Shall pour anew his poetry from thee;
For thou hast lost thy greenness, and he loves
The verdure and companionship of groves--
Sings where the song is loudest, and the spray,
Fresh, fair, and youthful, dances in the ray!
Nor shall returning Spring, o'er storms and strife
Victorious, e'er recal thee into life!
Yet stand thou there--majestic to the last,
And stoop with grandeur to the conquering blast.
Aye, stand thou there--for great in thy decay,
Thou wondrous remnant of a far-gone day,
Thy name, thy might, shall wake in rural song,
Bless'd by the old--respected by the young;
While all unknown, uncar'd for,--oak on oak
Of yon tall grove shall feel the woodman's stroke;
One common, early fate awaits them all,
No sympathizing eye shall mark their fall;
And beautiful in ruin as they lie,
For them shall not be heard one rustic sigh!
Since the use of the bow has been superseded by more deadly instruments
of warfare, the cultivation of the Yew is now less common. This, says
Evelyn, is to be deplored; for the barrenest ground and coldest of our
mountains might be profitably replenished with them. However, in winter,
we may still see some of the higher hills in Surrey clad with entire
woods of Yew and cypress, for miles around, as we stand on Box Hill; and
might, without any violence to the ordinary powers of imagination, fancy
ourselves transported into a new or enchanted country. Indeed, Evelyn
remarked, in his day, that if in any spot in England,
--'tis here
Eternal spring and summer all the year.
Our venerable author records a Yew-tree, ten yards in girth, which grew
in the church-yard of Crowhurst, in the county of Surrey. And another
standing in Braburne church-yard, near Scot's Hall, Kent; which being
fifty-eight feet eleven inches in circumference, would be near 20 feet
in diameter.
There are several remarkable existing church-yard Yews in this country.
The tallest, which is at Harlington, near Hounslow, is fifty-six feet in
height; another at Martley, Worcestershire, is about twelve yards in
circumference; and at Ashill, Somersetshire, there are two very large
trees--one fifteen feet round, extending its branches north and south
fifty-six feet; the other dividing into three large trunks a little
above the ground, but having many of its branches decayed. There are
also eleven Yew-trees in the church-yard of Aberystwith, the largest
being twenty-four feet, and the smallest eleven feet six inches, in
circumference.
There is also a group of Yews at Fountain's Abbey worthy of remark on
their own account, and they are also interesting in a historical view.
Burton gives the following notice of them:--"At Christmas the
Archbishop, being at Ripon (anno 1132), assigned to the monks some lands
in the patrimony of St. Peter, about three miles west of that place, for
the erecting of a monastery. The spot of ground had never been
inhabited, unless by wild beasts, being overgrown with wood and
brambles, lying between two steep hills and rocks, covered with wood on
all sides, more proper for a retreat for wild beasts than the human
species. This was called Skeldale, or the vale of the Skell, a rivulet
running through it from the west to the eastward part of it. The
Archbishop also gave to them a neighbouring village, called Sutton
Richard. The prior of St. Mary's, at York, was chosen abbot by the
monks, being the first of this monastery of Fountain's, with whom they
withdrew into this uncouth desert, without any house to shelter them in
the winter season, or provisions to subsist on; but entirely depending
on Divine Providence. There stood a large elm in the midst of the vale,
on which they put some thatch or straw, and under that they lay, eat,
and prayed, the bishop for a time supplying them with bread, and the
rivulet with drink. Part of the day some spent in making wattles, to
erect a little oratory, whilst others cleared some ground, to make a
little garden. But it is supposed that they soon changed the shelter of
the elm for that of seven Yew-trees, growing on the declivity of the
hill, on the south side of the Abbey, all standing at this present time,
except the largest, which was blown down about the middle of the last
century. They are of extraordinary size; the trunk of one of them is
twenty-six feet six inches in circumference, at the height of three feet
from the ground; and they stand so near each other, as to form a cover
almost equal to a thatched roof. Under these trees, we are told by
tradition, the monks resided till they built the monastery, which seems
to be very probable, when we consider how little a Yew-tree increases in
a year, and to what a bulk these are grown. And as the hill-side was
covered with wood, which is now cut down, except these trees, it seems
as if they were left standing to perpetuate the memory of the monks'
habitation there, during the first winter of their residence."
Wordsworth gives us the following animated description of a noted Yew in
Lorton Vale; and also of four others--the "fraternal four,"--growing in
Borrowdale:--
There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,
Nor loth to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Omfraville or Percy, ere they marched
To Scotland's heath; or those that crossed the sea,
And drew their sounding bows at Agincourt,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are these fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved,--
Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane;--a pillared shade
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially--beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes
May meet at moontide--Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight--Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow,--there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone;
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.
The Yew is easily propagated by sowing the berries as soon as they are
ripe (without clearing them from the surrounding pulp), upon a shady bed
of fresh soil, covering them over about half an inch with the same
earth. Many plants will appear in spring, while others will remain in
the ground until autumn, or the spring following. When the plants come
up, they should be kept free from weeds, or they will be choked and
frequently destroyed. The plants may remain in the original bed two
years, and then be removed early in October into beds four or five feet
wide, each plant a foot apart from the next, and the same distance in
the rows; taking care to lay a little muck over the ground about their
roots, and to water them in dry weather. There the plants may remain two
or three years, according to their growth, when they should be
transplanted into nursery rows at three feet distance, and eighteen
inches asunder. This operation must be performed in autumn. After
remaining three or four years in the nursery, they may be planted where
they are to remain, observing to remove them in autumn where the ground
is very dry, and in spring where it is cold and moist. Whether as an
evergreen undergrowth or as a timber-tree, the Yew deserves to be more
extensively, cultivated than heretofore. As an underwood, it is scarcely
inferior to the holly, and only so in failing to produce those sparkling
effects of light which distinguish the larger and more highly glazed
dark green foliage of that tree: in hardihood it is its equal, and it
bears, with the same comparative impunity, the drip and shade of many of
our loftier deciduous trees, a quality of great importance where an
evergreen wood is desired. The great value and durable properties of its
wood ought also to favour its introduction into our mixed plantations,
even where profit is the chief object in view, the value of the wood
well compensating for the slowness of its growth. Besides, when fostered
by the shelter of surrounding trees, it would be drawn up and grow much
more rapidly, and with a cleaner stem.
The Yew is not only celebrated for its toughness and elasticity--it is a
common saying among the inhabitants of the New Forest, that a post of
Yew will outlast a post of iron. The veins of its timber exceed in
beauty those of most other trees, and its roots are not surpassed by the
ancient citron. The artists in box most gladly employ it; and for the
cogs of mill-wheels and axle-trees, there is no wood to be compared to
it.
We extract the following table from the ancient laws of Wales, showing
the comparative worth of a Yew with other trees:--
A consecrated Yew, its value is a pound.
An oak, its value is six score pence.
A mistletoe branch, its value is three score pence.
Thirty pence is the value of every principal branch in the oak.
Three score pence is the value of every sweet apple-tree.
Thirty pence is the value of a sour apple-tree.
Fifteen pence is the value of a good Yew-tree.
Seven pence halfpenny is the value of a thorn-tree.
FORESTS AND WOODLANDS
OF
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
The British isles, like other countries of Europe, were in former times
abundantly covered with forests. The first general attack made upon
these in England was in 1536, when Henry VIII. confiscated the church
lands, and distributed them, together with their woods, among numerous
grantees. But it was not until between the civil war which broke out in
1642 and the restoration in 1660, that the royal forests, as well as the
woods of the nobility and gentry, were materially diminished. During
these few years, however, many extensive forests so completely
disappeared, that hardly any memorial was left of them but their name.
These two great territorial changes were followed by increased social
and national prosperity. Though we have now hardly any forests or
woodlands of considerable extent, there are perhaps few countries over
which timber is more equably distributed, that is, in those counties
where the soil and aspect are favourable to its growth. Woods of small
extent, coppices, clumps, and clusters of trees are very generally
distributed over the face of the country, which, together with the
timber scattered in the hedge-rows, constitute a mass of wood of no
inconsiderable importance.