Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/239

Rh by the Inverness road, which the Duke of Atholl informs me are probably part of the booty carried off by his ancestors in 1684 from Inveraray, as described in Chronicles of the Atholl Family, by the present Duke.‘ Nothing can better illus- trate the importance which was paid to trees and planting even at this early period, when the Highlands were hardly civilised; than that so many exotic trees should have existed at Inveraray, and that it should have been thought worth while to carry them to such a distance when wheeled carriages could not have traversed the country.

An immense Scots pine, which I have not yet been able to visit, grows at Guisachan, Inverness-shire, now the property of Lord Portsmouth, whose forester, Mr. Davidson, informs me that in February 1907 it was 53 feet 10 inches high and 16 feet 8 inches in girth at the ground, and 15 feet 7 inches at 5 feet. At 11 feet from the ground, below the first branch, it is 16 feet 10 inches in girth, The trunk has been cut into at the base, which is believed by old people living near to have been done by smugglers, as an illicit whisky-still once existed near it. A drawing of this tree was made for the late Sir Dudley Marjoribanks, of which I have a copy. Mr. E. Ellice tells me that there are a number of very large old pines in the Guisachan Woods, girthing over 14 feet.

Mr. E. Ellice of Invergarry informs me that there are a considerable number of old native Scots pines at that place, among them one which attracted the late Mr. Gladstone’s attention, and of which he sends me a sketch, with the following measurements :—Height, 70 to 80 feet; girth at the ground, 20½ feet; at 5 feet, 16 feet 3 inches; at 10 feet, 15 feet 9 inches; at 13 feet, 17 feet. A figure of this will appear in Vol. IV. Other trees near it measure 14 feet 3 inches, 12 feet 10 inches, and 12 feet 9 inches ; and these appear to be the parents of many more which may be divided, according to their age, into three classes: those of 120 to 150 years, of which there are some hundreds ; those of from 80 to 100, of which there may be 15,000 to 20,000; and younger trees.

The finest forest in this locality is in Glen Malie, on Lochiel’s property,

1 "In 1684 or 1685 the Marquis of Atholl did carry out of the orchard enclosures and shrubberies at Inveraray—

This claim was settled for £13,000 Scots or £1333, 6s. 8d.”—Chronicles of Atholl Family, i, 265. Rh