Lime tree

“ The leaf-stalk is half the length of the leaf. It blooms in July and August, and the flowers are yellowish white and very fragrant; when an avenue of limes is in blossom, the whole atmosphere is filled with a delightful perfume which can hardly be described."
THE LINDEN OR LIME TREE (Tilia) .
"There are no lime trees here, are there?" asked Clara.
"No," was the reply, "I do not think there are any in this neighborhood; but they grow abundantly not many miles away. ”

“ The lime-tree affects a rich feeding loamy soil; in such ground their growth will be most for speed and spreading. They may be planted as big as ones leg; their heads topp’d at about six or eight foot bole; thus it will become (of all other) the most proper, and beautiful for walks, as producing an upright body, smooth and even bark, ample leaf, sweet blossom, the delight of bees, and a goodly shade at distance of eighteen, or twenty five foot. They are also very patient of pruning ”

“ He had become one burning mood—that, and nothing more.
To be out, especially amongst trees, was the only solace.
And he sat for a long time that evening under a large lime-tree on a knoll above the Serpentine. There was very little breeze, just enough to keep alive a kind of whispering. What if men and women, when they had lived their gusty lives, became trees! What if someone who had burned and ached were now spreading over him this leafy peace—this blue-black shadow against the stars? Or were the stars, perhaps, the souls of men and women escaped for ever from love and longing? ”

“ Botanically considered, the Common Lime is a large and handsome tree with spreading branches, thickly clothed with leaves twice the length of their petioles, cordate at the base, serrate, pointed, smooth—except a woolly tuft at the origin of each nerve beneath—unequal and entire at the base ”

“ The Lime tree is like a thick Hollybush in England, and as full of prickles: if you make a hedge of them, about your house, ’tis sufficient proofe against the Negres; whose naked bodies cannot possible enter it, and it is an extraordinary sure fence against Cattell; it commonly growes seven or eight foot high, extreamly thick of leaves and fruit, and of prickles ”

“ The only genus belonging to the natural order Tiliaceæ which is easily to be procured in Britain is that of Tilia, the Lime trees. The common Lime (Tilia europæa) is generally a tall, well-formed tree, with rather broad leaves, which are heart-shaped at the base, tapering at the point, and serrated at the margin: they are also smooth on the outer surface, thin, and of a light and delicate texture; below there is a little tuft of hair at the angle of the veins. The flowers are produced in cymes or compound Fig. 120.—The flowers and seed-vessel of the common Lime tree. umbels (see fig. 120) ”

“ To be tried in the 3rd and 6th regions and on the mountains in the 4th and 5th. Grown as the pine.
Lime Tree.—The different European and North American species, Tilia argentea, Desf., T. nigra, Burk, and T. silvestris from Europe, might be planted in the 5th, 6th and 7th regions in heavy, porous, clay soil.
Tsuga douglasi (Fir) .—From Colorado State, North America. Attains a height of 50 metres and furnishes excellent timber. Suitable for planting woods together with spruces and firs, and grown in the same way. ”

“ Queer-to think, no day is like to a day that's past and no night like a night that's coming! Why, then, fear death, which is but night? Why care, if next day have different face and spirit? The sun has lighted buttercup-field now, the wind touches the lime-tree. ”

“ When enriching the ground about a tree, never heap the fertilizer round the trunk, but spread it evenly from the stem outward as far as the branches reach, remembering that the head above is the measure of the root extension below. Air-slacked lime is also useful to the peach in small quantities ”

“ Lime is better used as follows: remove the earth from the trunk, and put about half a peck to each tree. Every spring, spread and dig in the old lime, and put new in its place. Unleached ashes are good to be dug in around a [Pg 369] tree. If your soil is calcareous, full of lime, these applications are not needful. Thoroughly rotted manure, or better yet, black vegetable mold may be dug in liberally, and will supply the soil with nutriment, and the roots will find their way in with great facility. ”

“ The wood of the lime is valued by the Indians for making various odds and ends, which are sold by thousands in Mexico. In Europe, the bark of this tree is used for well-ropes, and the charcoal made from its wood is preferred to any other for the manufacture of gunpowder. Few trees are more useful, and its beautiful green foliage makes it highly ornamental in a garden. ”

“ It was in this, that he plunged the roots, covering the surface with the turf: A singular example of removing so great trees at such a season, and therefore by me taken notice of here expresly. Other perfections of the tree (besides its unparallel’d beauty for walks) are that it will grow in almost all grounds: That it lasts long; that it soon heals its scars; that it affects uprightness; that it stoutly resists a storm; that it seldom becomes hollow.
4. The timber of a well-grown lime is convenient for any use that the willow is ”

“ Our native trees are not so pretty as the English lime, which, clothed with softer foliage, has a smaller leaf and a neater and more elegant spray. Ours bears larger and more conspicuous flowers, in heavier clusters, but of inferior sweetness. Both species are remarkable for their size and longevity. The young leaves of the lime are of a bright fresh tint that contrasts strongly with the very dark color of the branches ”

“ All our Limes have similar straight tall stems, clad in smooth bark, and with a similar habit of growth. They are trees that demand genial climatic conditions for their proper development, and in consequence they do not put forth their leaves until May. The period of their leafy glory is comparatively short, for they are among the trees that lose their leaves earliest in autumn, after having been for a few days transmuted into gold. The leaf of the Lime is heart-shaped, with one of the basal lobes larger than the other, and the edges cut into saw-like teeth. ”

“ The foliage glistens with a strange dew, that all day long drips on to the ground below, nurturing a rank growth of grasses, which shoot up in places so high that their spikes of fierce blood-fed green show far up among the deep-tinted foliage of the terrible tree, and, like a jealous body-guard, keep concealed the fearful secret of the charnel-house within, and draw round the black roots of the murderous plant a decent screen of living green. ”

“ The actual percentage is not the determining factor, a clay soil needing greater richness in this material than a loam, and a sandy soil giving a good account of itself with an even less total content of lime, but in its way the particular soil type must be well supplied by nature with lime if its trees and other vegetation bear evidences of its strength and good agricultural value. ”

“ Here a symmetrical broad leaf stands out clear against the blue sky, every branch outlined, and here mahogany, mahoe, and the giant cotton tree, cedar and sweet-wood and a dozen other trees grow close together, close and tall, struggling up to the sunshine, marking by their stature and their girth the wealth of the soil that has given them birth. ”

“ A dense black moss, as it appears to the naked eye, covering some of the slopes and delicately fringing summits and sharp ridges, is in reality a heavy growth of timber, the sturdy pine, the tree beloved of Shakspeare. ”

“ Under the genial rain and genial heat, the timber-tree itself, all its tangled ruin of lianes and parasites, and the boughs and leaves, snapped off not only by the blow, but by the very wind of the falling tree, all melt away swiftly and peacefully in a few months—say almost a few days—into the water, and carbonic acid, and sunlight out of which they were created at first, to be absorbed instantly by the green leaves around, and, transmuted into fresh forms of beauty, leave not a wrack behind. ”

“ The slender alders form themselves into small groves in the hollows. The lime is scarcely to be met with at all, the oak never appears nor does the fir. Yet there are firs upon the eastern declivities which form the frontiers of our territory, for here the soil changes and with it the vegetation. There they rear black against the heavens and peer, sentinel-like, upon us in our lower levels. ”

“ Nature made the value of land as a producer of food utterly dependent upon the activity of lime, and at the same time gave it some power to shirk its work. In a normal soil is a percentage of lime that came from the disintegration of rock of the region or was transported by action of water on a huge scale. Possibly rarely would it be in insufficient amount to keep a soil in a condition friendly to plant life, and to feed the plant, if it stayed where nature placed it and kept in form available for the needs it was intended to meet. ”

“ The soil is a great chemical laboratory, but exact knowledge of all its processes doubtless would enrich the farmer's vocabulary more than his pocketbook. We are concerned in knowing that lime's field of usefulness is broad in that it is an essential plant food and provides the active means of keeping the feeding ground of plants in sanitary condition. We want to know how it comes about that our soils are deficient in lime, and how we may determine the fact that they are deficient. ”

“ The old-time practice of making heavy applications of fresh burned lime to stiff limestone soils to make them friable, and to make their plant food available, led to disuse of all lime in some sections on account of the exhaustion that followed dependence upon these large amounts as a manure. ”

“ Liming must form the foundation of a new order of things. The ability to grow the clovers and to furnish rich vegetable matter to the soil, which naturally is poor in humus, rests upon lime application first, and then upon any supply of plant food that may continue to be lacking. ”

“ The moon indeed was palest gold behind the pines, so that its radiance was a mere shower of pollen, just a brushing of white moth-down over the reeds of their little dark pond, and the black blur of the flowering currant bushes. And the young lime-trees, not yet in full leaf, quivered ecstatically in that moon-witchery, still letting fall raindrops of the past spring torrent, with soft hissing sounds. A real sense in the garden, of God holding his breath in the presence of his own youth swelling, growing, trembling toward perfection! ”

“ The path is carpeted with moss that feels like a sponge beneath your feet. The greenish-grey tint of the lichen clinging to the trees is most effective when it stands in the shadows a little removed from the pathway. The larch, the pine, and the birch lift their proud heads above the spruce-trees, the white of the pine glimmering like silver in the sunlight. If the stillness of the woods is broken at all, it is by the thud of the woodman’s axe, the sound of falling water, or the weird, haunting note of the woodpecker. ”

“ These intruders occupy the surface soil to the disadvantage of the roots of the fruit trees, and we may wonderfully improve the health of such orchard by plowing the ground, and at the same time severely pruning the branches and cleansing the bark of these old trees. These good results may be continued by shallow culture of the soil, with suitable applications of manure where needed. By giving a dose of lime, or of marl, and ashes, we shall infuse a new life and growth and productiveness that will astonish and delight us, and reward us for our labors and outlay. ”

“ At last the woods are like a garden of delicate flowers, clothing the hills as far as eye can see with colors of sunrise. The red-oaks are gold color, with strong brown stems; ash and lindens are golden green; maples soft copper and bronze, or deep flesh-color.
The flower-like delicacy of leafing out is wonderfully prolonged. The willows come first, then elms, in brown flower, then quaking-asps and birches, and then maples. Later, lindens and ash-trees catch the light, and the ash leaves (which grow far apart, and in bunches, with the flower-buds) are indeed like just-alighted butterflies. ”

“ Taking as a guide the trees and plants which characterize the obviously calcareous lands, our next step should be to verify, if possible, the fact that wherever these occur naturally, lime is abundant in the soil in comparison with those lands in which such vegetation does not occur naturally, or perhaps even fails to flourish when planted without special fertilization. ”

“ In fact, a leaf is a layer of the precious cambium spread out on a framework of veins and covered [Pg 18] with a delicate, transparent skin—a sort of etherealized bark. What a vast quantity of leaf pulp is in the foliage of a large tree!
As summer wanes, and the upward tide of sap begins to fail, starch making in the leaf laboratories declines proportionately. Usually before midsummer the fresh green is dimmed. Dust and heat and insect injuries impair the leaf's capacity for work. The thrifty tree undertakes to withdraw the leaf pulp before winter comes. ”

“ A close inspection also will discover curious creepers and climbers; and among the branches strange orchids hide their eccentric flowers. But the outward type of tree is the same as we have at home—trees resembling the ash, the beech, and the elm, only seldom so large, except by the streams, and never so beautiful. ”