the course of the river was afterwards turned to it. It is greatly to the honour of this family, that for a century past their improvements, such as roadmaking, bridge-building, and planting, have been made more with a view to the general benefit of the country than to lodging themselves sumptuously.

New Hailes, near Musselburgh, was a seat of Baron Dalrymple, a celebrated lawyer and improver, and is now the property of Miss Dalrymple.

Arbigland, in Dumfriesshire, was the property of William Craik, Esq., a contemporary of Maxwell and of Fletcher of Saltoun, and one of the original members of the Society for the Improvement of Agriculture in Scotland. He was one of the first to study the works of Tull, and to adopt the drill system. He died in 1798, at the age of 95 years. We visited Arbigland in 1804, and again in 1806, and found the place still celebrated for its old silver firs. A life of this distinguished agriculturist will be found in the Farmer's Magazine, vol. xii. p. 145.

Loudon Castle, in Ayrshire, was one of the first places in the West of Scotland where foreign trees were planted. "John Earl of Loudon," Walker observes, "formed at Loudon Castle, in Ayrshire, the most extensive collection of willows, that has been made in this country, which he interspersed in his extensive plantations. Wherever he went during his long military services, he sent home every valuable sort of tree that he met with. All the willows he found cultivated in England, Ireland, Holland, Flanders, and Germany, as also in America and Portugal, where he commanded, were procured and sent to Loudon. (Econ. Hist., &c., p. 161.) In 1806, and again in 1831, we found a number of fine old trees at Loudon Castle; we recollect, in particular, robinias, gleditschias, American oaks, hickories, walnuts, taxodiums, acers, poplars, and a variety of others. Some are recorded by Dr. Walker as having been remarkably fine specimens in 1780.

Dalmahoy, near Edinburgh, is the property of the Earl of Morton, and there are still a few specimens of old trees there. Mount Steuart, the next place mentioned in the list, is situated in the Island of Bute, and was built in 1718 by James Earl of Bute, father of the celebrated earl of that name, who was minister to George III. The plantations there, according to Dr. Walker, were begun in the same year. Speaking of them in 1780, he says, "They are equal, if not superior, to those of the same age in Ayrshire and Renfrewshire. The Oriental plane grows here almost like a willow; is never hurt in winter, and forms a fine dressed shady tree." The Marquess of Bute's family have planted from 200,000 to 300,000 trees every year since the beginning of the present century. The place contains many remarkably

fine specimens, which will be severally noticed in the course of this work.

Hopetoun House, the property of the Earl of Hopetoun, is still celebrated for its cedars. According to a letter, dated November, 1834, which we received from Mr. Smith, the gardener there, the cedars alluded to by Dr. Walker were brought from London by Archibald Duke of Argyll, and a number of other exotic trees, such as tulip trees, evergreens, oaks, &c., appear to have been planted about the same time. It is remarkable, Mr. Smith observes, that these cedar trees are the fastest-growing trees on the estate. The largest, in 1834, measured nearly 15 ft. in girt, at a foot from the ground, and was 68 ft. high. The silver fir there was 90 ft. high; the tulip tree 60 ft. high; the Carolina or evergreen birdcherry, mentioned by Dr. Walker, 70 ft. high; the sweet chestnut 75 ft. high; the arbor vitæ 35 ft. high; the common holly 44 ft. high; and the common yew 28 ft. high. On the whole, Hopetoun House is one of the most celebrated places for foreign trees and shrubs in Scotland. (See Encyc. of Gard., § 1225. edit. 1835.)

Carmichael was, we believe, situated in Clydesdale, and belonged to the Earl of Hyndford. Mellerstane, in Berwickshire, was the seat of George Baillie of Jerviswood. The mansion is magnificent, and the grounds extensive. Elliock, in Dumfriesshire, belongs to the Veitch family, some of whom were formerly Lords of Session. It has very extensive plantations.

By Leith, where the balsam poplar was first planted, we find, from another passage in Dr. Walker's works, was meant a nursery in Leith Walk; in all probability that of Mr. Richmond, who was the first to establish a nursery there, which, about 1780, merged in that of Messrs. Dickson and Co.

It is observed by Dr. Walker, that most of the foregoing trees were only planted in gardens and pleasure-grounds as objects of rarity or beauty. Planting on a large scale, for profit, was chiefly performed, as may readily be imagined, with indigenous trees. The father of this description of planting in Scotland was, according to the same undoubted authority, Thomas Earl of Haddington, who began to plant Tyningham, near Dunbar, in the year 1705. He enclosed 1000 acres, called Binning Wood, and wrote a Treatise on Forest Trees, which was printed in 1733. The earl died at New Hailes near Edinburgh in 1735, and was succeeded by his grandson, to whom he had addressed the letters which compose the treatise. The earl informs us in his treatise, that when he came to live at Tyningham, in the year 1700, there were not above fourteen acres set with trees. The earl's grandfather, he tells us, after the civil wars in the time of Charles I. were over, "tried to raise some trees," and for that purpose planted two rows round the

house and gardens. The author of the treatise tells us that he was "fond of dogs and horses, and had no manner of inclination to plant, till he was obliged to form some enclosures for grazing his horses, as he found the purchase of hay very expensive." After he began, his lady, who " was a great lover of planting, encouraged him to go on, and at last asked leave to go about it herself." The first Marquess of Tweeddale, Lord Rankeilor, Sir William Bruce, his father, and some others, he says, had planted a great deal; yet, he adds, "I will be bold to say, that planting was not well understood in this country till this century began. I think it was the late Earl of Mar, that first introduced the wilderness way of planting amongst us; and very much improved the taste of our gentlemen, who very soon followed his example." (p. 3.) What the earl means by a wilderness, we afterwards learn, is a plantation with straight walks cut through it, in the geometrical style of landscape-gardening; in England, a wilderness plantation is generally understood to be one in which the walks are in irregular directions.

It does not appear, from this treatise, that the earl planted many trees of foreign origin in his woods; but, from the dimensions of some arbor vitæs, evergreen oaks, chestnuts, &c., there can be little doubt that he did not lose sight of such trees in his ornamental plantations near the house. Sang, in the Planter's Kalendar (2d edit. p. 551.), mentions a silver fir as having been planted in Binning Wood in 1705. This wood, he says, "reflects great honour on the memory of the lady who planted it;" meaning, no doubt, the Countess of Haddington above mentioned, who is said to have sold her jewels, to enable her to plant Binning Wood. The holly hedges at Tyningham planted by this earl and his successor are unquestionably the finest in Britain. Some notices respecting these hedges are given in the London Horticultural Society's Transactions, vol. viii., and in the Gardener's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 184. There are in all 2952 yards of holly hedge, in different lengths, of different heights of from 10 to 25 ft., and of widths from 9 to 13 ft.: they are, with the exception of one, regularly clipped every April. The largest single holly at Tyningham, according to the dimensions sent us in January, 1835, was 42 ft. high. The hedges were for the most part planted in 1712. Wight of Ormiston, in his General Survey of the Agriculture of Scotland, speaking of Tyningham in 1768, says, these hedges, and the abundance of evergreens, give the place the appearance of summer in the midst of winter.

The great promoter of the planting of foreign trees and shrubs in Scotland, according to Dr. Walker, was Archibald Duke of Argyll; unquestionably, also, as we have seen (p. 57.), the greatest promoter of this kind of planting, in England. The duke communicated this taste to a number of his intimate friends,

both in England and Scotland. Among these, in the latter country, Dr. Walker mentions the Duke of Athol, the Earls of Bute, of Loudon, of Hyndford, and of Panmure; Sir James Nasmyth, Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun, Sir Archibald Grant, and others. By the exertions of these gentlemen, planting became very general in Scotland between the years 1730 and 1760. (Walker's Hebrides, vol. i. p. 210.)

Sir Archibald Grant began to plant in 1719. The following is an extract taken from a commonplace book kept by this gentleman, and published in the Gardener's Magazine, vol. xi. p. 48. In 1715," Sir Archibald says, "by the indulgence of a very worthy father, I was allowed, though then very young, to begin to enclose and plant, and provide and prepare nurseries. At that time there was not one acre on the whole estate enclosed, nor any timber upon it but a few elms, sycamore, and ash, about a small kitchen-garden adjoining to the house, and some straggling trees at some of the farmyards, with a small copsewood, not enclosed, and dwarfish, and browsed by sheep and cattle."

It is probable that most of the foreign trees and shrubs that were introduced into Scotland previously to the middle of the 18th century, were raised from seeds in the different localities. There could have been few, if any, public tree nurseries in Scotland previously to that period; and the carriage of trees from England must have been extremely tedious and expensive. The Earl of Haddington was, in all probability, the originator of nurseries in Scotland, as well as the father of artificial plantations in that country, on a large scale for profit. John Reid, the author of the Scots Gardener, published in 1683, mentions Hugh Wood, gardener at Hamilton, dealing in fruit trees and numerous other garden articles, whether English, Dutch, or Scotch, but he makes no mention of forest trees. Sutherland's Hortus Medicus Edinburgensis, published in 1683, is stated in the titlepage to be sold by " Mr. Henry Ferguson, seed merchant, at the head of Black Friar's Wynd." That there were plants, trees, &c., sold by the gardeners in Scotland, is obvious from the following advertisement, dated 1721:-"There is to be sold at John Weir's, gardener at Heriot's Hospital, and at James Weir's, son to the said John, his house at Tolcross, at the end of the West Port, all sorts of garden seeds, fruit and barren trees, and evergreens, as also flowers of the best kinds." Archibald Eagle of Edinburgh was seedsman to the Society of Improvers of Agriculture in Scotland in 1743; and, the Society having been established in 1723, this firm, now Eagle and Henderson, may date from the latter period. They had, however, no nursery for at least half a century afterwards. Dr. Walker seems to indicate that public nurseries for forest trees began to be established in Scotland between the years 1730 and

1760. The most considerable of these, he says, was that of old Mr. Dickson, at Hassendeanburn, in Teviotdale. This nursery, we are informed by the present proprietors, Messrs. Archibald Ďickson and Co., was founded in 1729. From it sprang, in 1767, the nursery of Messrs. Dickson, now Dickson and Turnbull, at Perth; and, subsequently, another brother of the Hassendeanburn family, Walter Dickson, began the house of Dickson and Co. of Edinburgh, now Dicksons and Shankley, in connexion with Mr. James Dickson, who was no relative of the family. It thus appears, that Mr. Robert Dickson of Hassendeanburn was the father of commercial forest tree nurseries in Scotland. The three nurseries established by him and his two brothers being still the most extensive in that country. Mr. Archibald Dickson, the present chief of the firm at Hassendeanburn and at Hawick, to whom we are indebted for the above information, states, in his letter of March 24. 1835, that he is now bringing up some of the fifth generation to the trade. The next considerable public establishment of this kind was that of Messrs. Anderson and Leslie of Broughton Park, Edinburgh; and contemporary with this were those of Mr. Richmond of Leith Walk, of Gordon of Fountainbridge, of Boutcher of Comely Bank, of Messrs. Austen of Glasgow, of Thomas Leslie and Co. of Dundee, of Reid of Aberdeen, of Sampson of Kilmarnock, and a number of others. The most scientific nurseryman in Scotland, during the 18th century, appears to have been Mr. Boutcher. According to an authority quoted by Sir Henry Steuart, Mr. Boutcher was "the honestest and most judicious nurseryman Scotland ever had." He made an attempt to improve Scottish arboriculture about 1760; but, according to Sir Henry, he was "undervalued by the ignorance of his age, and suffered to languish unsupported for years at Comely Garden, and to die at last in obscurity and indigence." (Planter's Guide, 2d edit. p. 399.) Boutcher's Treatise on raising Forest Trees was the first work on the subject of its time, and Scottish nurserymen have only produced one work on planting superior to it; namely, the edition of Nicol's Planter's Kalendar, which was edited, and in great part rewritten, by Mr. Sang of Kirkaldy.

The indigenous trees of Ireland are the same as those of Britain, though such as consider the box, the true service, and the common English elm, truly indigenous to England will not accord with this, as these trees are never found in an apparently wild state in Ireland. Those, on the contrary, who consider the Arbutus and Erica mediterrànea indigenous to Ireland find them wanting in England, and may hence consider that Ireland has more native trees and shrubs than this country. There can be very little doubt that the common yew is an indigenous tree in Ireland, for trunks of it, of large dimensions,