SPANISH CHESTNUTS IN SCOTLAND. 



61 



extended over a period of fifty years, and whose intimacy with and 

 congenial taste in tree-culture, led Strutt to dedicate his "Sylva 

 Britannica " to him. The Spanish chestnut referred to measured 

 as follows: — 



The altitude above sea-level is about 100 to 120 feet. In the 

 same garden stands another tine Spanish chestnut, but not quite 

 so large. It girthed in 1877, 21 feet round the base, and 14 

 feet at 5 feet from the ground. These trees may probably have 

 been reared from foreign seeds, brought home by the monks con- 

 nected with the adjoining Paisley Abbey, and of whose posses- 

 sions Auldhouse was a part, and where they had a cmiohitium or 

 cell. The position of the two trees is exactly due north and 

 south, and it is quite possible that they were so planted as to 

 form a daily .index of the polar star's position. With such a 

 conjecture we close this paper, and can fancy this picture of the 

 past : the old hooded monk dropping with careful hand the seeds 

 of these two trees into the ground, which are destined to show 

 grandeur and vigour when his abbey and his hierarchy have been 

 swept away and become things of the past, and he himself, " the 

 grand old gardener," sleeps soundly beneath the stones of the 

 neighbouring ruined cloister cell. 



[ArrENDix. 



