which in all probability was a flourishing tree at the commencement of the Christian era, may yet survive for centuries to come." A weeping birch at Ballogie, in the parish of Birse, in Aberdeenshire, in 1792, measured five feet in circumference; but it carried nearly this degree of thickness, with a clear stem, up to the height of about fifty feet, and it was judged to be about one hundred feet high. There are many birches in the forest of Tarnawa in Morayshire, which are ten and eleven feet in circumference, and we measured one, which, so far as we can recollect at the time we sketched it from Nature, was thirteen feet at three feet from the ground. The birch is a quick growing, but short-lived, tree. In thirty years it will rise forty feet high, but it seems to arrive at its maturity in about seventy years, or, at most, within a century. A Huntingdon willow, in the Old Botanic Garden at Edinburgh, in 1798, measured nine feet four inches in girth; it was thirty-three years old. A willow at Alderston, near Haddington, is thirteen feet in girth, at three feet from the ground; and, at six feet from the ground, it measures fourteen feet round. The Abbot's Willow at Bury St Edmunds, is of the species Salix alba. It stands on the bank of a small river called the Lark, in the park of John Benjafield, Esq. It is seventy-five feet high; the stem is eighteen feet six inches in girth; it divides, in a very picturesque manner, into two large principal limbs, which are respectively fifteen and twelve feet in girth. It covers an area of two hundred and four feet in diameter, and it contains four hundred and forty feet of solid timber. In the year 1769, there was a row of Abeles at Stercuston, in Haddingtonshire, which was soon afterwards cut down. It contained one hundred and twenty-two trees, all about eighty feet high, and from twenty to thirty feet of clear trunk without a branch. The trunks were from five to seven feet in circumference, and yet the trees stood only seven feet distant from each other. They were in a deep moist soil, were eighty years old, and afforded a great quantity of timber. They were beginning to decay. An abele at Drumlanrig, in 1773, measured seven feet ten inches. This tree, which stood in a dry soil, was eighty years old, and about seventy feet high. The great abele at Fountainhall, in Haddingtonshire, which is so tall that it may be seen over the greater part of the surrounding country, measures eight feet one inch in circumference at three feet from the ground, and it carries its thickness up, with a very gradual diminution, to the top. It is a very picturesque tree. Dr Walker says, that it is doubted whether or not the abele is a native of England, but that it certainly has the appearance of being an indigenous tree in several parts of Scotland. It was planted in many places about the end of the last, and the beginning of the present century; but it has since been neglected. The wood is not valuable, and the tree becomes a nuisance, from the suckers with which it fills the adjacent soil. A walnut tree, growing before the front of Kinross House, in Kinross-shire, in September, 1796, measured nine feet six inches in girth. This tree seems to have been planted about the year 1684. It is probably the oldest walnut tree in Scotland. It is evidently decaying, whether from accident or age is uncertain. The walnut grows well in Scotland as a forest tree. There are many walnut trees of a size equal, if not superior, to that of this tree. A hawthorn at the House of Kinkarochie, in the parish of Scone, in Perthshire, measured in 1795, was found to be nine feet in girth. This is equal to the hawthorn of Duddingstone, which we have already noticed in our previous remarks upon the tree. The Duddingstone tree is twelve feet round above the roots. The Kinkarochie tree, however, seems to have a finer head, for the circular spread of its branches is fourteen yards in diameter. The hawthorn is certainly one of the longest lived trees; and there are doubtless many in the country of a larger size than those mentioned. A laburnum, which was cut at Greenlaw in Edinburghshire, in the year 1763, measured four feet six inches in girth, and furnished a plank of beautiful red wood fourteen inches broad. It was planted in the end of the seventeenth century, when laburnum trees were first introduced into Scotland. We are persuaded that many much larger laburnums now exist in the country. A hornbeam, at Bargoly, in Galloway, in 1780, measured six feet two inches round. It had twenty feet of a clear trunk, and was seventy feet high. A black poplar, at Alloa House, in Clackmannanshire, in 1792, measured thirteen feet six inches in girth, at a height from the ground of between three and four feet. The black poplar at Bury St Edmunds is ninety feet high, and fifteen feet in circumference at one yard from the ground. The trunk rises forty-five feet before it divides, and then it throws out a profusion of branches; its solid contents, by actual measurement, are five hundred and fifty-one feet. It is a very graceful and beautiful tree. A Lombardy poplar, at Nisbet, in Berwickshire, in 1795, when twenty-six years old, was sixty feet high, and measured six feet one inch in girth. Dr Walker says, that, on the borders of a canal near Brussels, this tree, in the space of fifteen years, has grown to the height of eighty feet, and from seven to eight feet in circumference; but this is nothing to some of the trees of this sort near London, and even in some of the other parts of Scotland. An ilex, at Loudoun, in Ayrshire, thirty feet high, in 1776, measured three feet nine inches in girth; and another ilex, being one of a row of these trees at Mount Stewart, in the island of Bute, in 1786, also measured exactly three feet nine inches. The ilex, though hardy with us, is a tree of very slow growth. A bird cherry, at Drumlanrig, forty feet high, in 1773, measured eight feet in girth. The tree was fresh and vigorous. On the banks of the Findhorn, and in other parts of the north of Scotland, this tree often rises much above this size. The red wood of the bird cherry is of a fine dark colour, and takes a good polish. A deciduous cypress, in the fruit garden at Loudoun, in Ayrshire, in 1776, measured two feet four inches. It was twenty-five feet high, and thirty years old. A pear tree, at Restalrig, near Edinburgh, at two and a half feet high, before it begins to branch, in 1799, measured twelve feet in girth. It stands in a garden, adjacent to what was the house of Albert Logan of Restalrig, who was attainted in the reign of James VI, and the tree was probably planted before his forfeiture. It is of the kind of pear called the Golden Knap. As the wood of the pear tree is valuable, it is often very advisable to plant out the seedlings raised from the golden knap, which form the largest and most durable trees. We find the following curious notice in a letter from the late Sir Andrew Lauder of Fountainhall, dated 26th September, 1792:- "I must not omit mentioning, that I saw, in a garden at Dunbar, rented by one Yorkstone, a jargonelle pear tree, extending (on a sixteen feet high wall) within three inches of sixty feet. By the gardener's calculation, he had, of this crop, not less than four hundred dozen of pears upon it, which he was selling at one shilling and sixpence per dozen; indeed, I never saw such a load." We are old enough to corroborate the fact here stated. The stroke of a pocket pruning knife was sufficient to fill a basket with the fruit. At the rate they were sold, the pears of this tree brought £30 sterling. An apple tree, in a garden at Jedburgh, in 1763, measured at three feet above ground seven feet two inches. The spread of its branches was above forty feet diameter, and it bore eight bolls of apples. An apricot, on a wall at Lethington, in East Lothian, in 1785, measured three feet two inches in girth. It was reckoned to be above one hundred years old, and was still fruitful. Another tree of the same kind was, many years ago, thirty feet high, and forty-four feet in breadth, on the wall of the castle at Branspeth, in the bishoprick of Durham. |