OAKS IX SCOTLAND. 201 



tracts of wood before it, tlie soft nature and dampness of the 

 site in these hollows making the trees there a moie easy prey to 

 its violence than in drier and firmer soils. Where these remains 

 interfered with the draining operations they were cut across and 

 allowed to lie. The wood was still hard and sound and of a 

 black colour. 



Of old and remarkable oaks in Scotland noticed and recorded 

 by earlier writers, several still exist, and have been identified, and 

 their present dimensions taken, for the purpose of this report, and 

 these will be found in the tabulated returns annexed. A few of 

 these early recorded trees may be here referred to, before passing 

 on to consider in detail many remarkably fine specimens of this 

 noble tree, not hitherto or only imperfectly noticed by former 

 writers. 



The old oak standing north from the Castle at Lochwood in 

 Annandale, recorded by Dr Walker as measuring, on 29th April 

 1773, at 6 feet above ground, 14 feet in circumference, and as 

 being then about 60 feet high, with a fine spreading head exactly 

 circular, and covering a space of about 60 feet diameter, still 

 exists, though evincing symptoms of extreme eld age. Measured 

 at the same point in 187-3, it was found to be 16 feet, having only 

 grown 2 feet in a century. Measured carefully in October 1879 

 it was then 19 feet 8 inches at 1 foot ; — 18 feet 10 inches at 5 

 feet above ground, and its bole was 12 feet 10 inches in length. 

 In Dr Walker's time this tree was supposed, but upon what 

 authority is not stated, to have been about 2:30 years old. 

 Walker cursorily notices another oak, inferior, he says, to the 

 first mentioned, growing near it, but in 1773 " measuring near 15 

 feet in girth." In 1873 it measured at same point 17 feet, and 

 at 2 feet above ground it was 19 feet. Of this tree he gives no 

 further details ; but we find in 1879 that it girthed 24 feet at 1 

 foot, and 20 feet at 5 feet above ground, and had a bole of 19 

 feet 2 inches in length. These trees are still growing in com- 

 parative vigour ; they are planted in a good dry woodland soil at 

 a high altitude, being not less than 900 feet above sea-level. 



The oak at Barjarg in Kithsdale, measured on loth July 1796, 

 was 17 feet in circumference close by the ground. At a height 

 of 16 feet it measured 11 feet 11 inches, at 32 feet it was II 

 feet 7 inches, and at 46 feet from the ground it was 6 feet 8 

 inches in girth. iJr Walker further states that this tree on 13th 

 .Julv 1773 measured 16 feet at the ground, and at 16 feet lii^li 

 it was then 10 feet 3 inches. It had therefore increased 1 foot 

 in bulk at the base and 1 foot 8 inches at 16 feet from the ground 

 in these twenty-three years. ]\Iore recent records of this oak, 

 undoubtedly the linest in Dumfriesshire even in its decaying 

 state at the present day, may prove inteiesting, as showing its 

 waning progress with the llight of time. In 1810 it was 17 feet 



