36 ON THE PICEA NOBILIS, AND ITS VALUE FOR 



One magnificent specimen has been reported to lis by our friend 

 Mr Fowler, the well-known and justly-esteemed arborist at 

 Castle-Kennedy, as having been observed by liim when in Koss • 

 shire, and which he considers the Jlnest he has seen. It grows at 

 Pairbum (Eoss-shire), and is about 60 feet in height, and towers 

 above all the surrounding trees most majestically. Another very 

 fine tree is at Coul (Eoss-shire). It covered a circumference of 

 98 feet with its lower branches when last measured, and was 

 about 70 feet in height. It is understood to have been planted 

 by Mr A. Eamsay (late manager of the Edinburgli Water Com- 

 pany) upwards of forty years ago ; it has several times lost its 

 leading shoot from severe storms, but has always formed a new 

 one, and had, when reported to us (in 1878), a perfect one. 

 It has several times yielded cones. Mr Fowler himself has a 

 very fine specimen of his own rearing at Castle-Kennedy. In 

 1861 it was 14 feet high, and was then 12 years old. It is now 

 38 feet, and very symmetrical, with a bole 7 feet 8 inches in 

 girth at 1 foot from the ground. Mr Fowler considers that the 

 F. noiilis will prove in this country a valuable timber-tree, 

 as it has the habit we have already noticed of concentrating its 

 growth and energies to the formation of wood in the stem, the 

 liranches being small in diameter in proportion to the size of the 

 trunk, and the older the tree becomes this property is the more 

 apparent. 



In the grounds of Eiccarton, Mid-Lothian (which abound in fine 

 specimens of the best species of the newer introduced ConiferaBj, 

 Ave find a magnificent P. nobilis. It is growing at 300 feet altitude, 

 and is thirty-six years old and 50 feet in height, with a bole 6 feet 

 2 inches in circumference at 1 foot from the ground. It grows in 

 a loamy soil, on a subsoil of clay and sand. It has several times, 

 lost its leader, but is nevertheless quite symmetrical, as it soon 

 repairs the injury. Frcrm this tree upwards of 1000 seedlings 

 have now been raised ; but probably from the unequal ripening 

 of the cones, the seedlings did not always appear equally healthy 

 and robust in the nursery beds. But notwithstanding this, many 

 of the progeny of this tree in various sites are now at least from 

 5 to 6 feet in height, and perfectly healthy, and of that deep, dark 

 green liue which can only be present where there is perfect vigour 

 and health of constitution, — a circumstance whicli does not go to 

 support the theory of some arboricvilturists, wlio hold that none of 

 the produce of home-grown cones can be equally hardy witli 

 seedlings raised from foreign seed. At Cargen (Drumfriessliire), 

 young trees grown from a cone taken from this Eiccarton tree 

 are tliriving well, and arc nov/ above 10 feet in height. From 

 a very healthy specimen tree at Vomer's Bridge, Moy, Ireland, 

 planted in 1848, and now 43 feet in height, with a girth of 

 5 feet 10 inches at 1 foot from the ground, many young seed- 



