206 ox THE OLD AND REMAEKABLE 



oaks in front of Houston mansion-house were reared from 

 acorns of this famous tree, and so eager were the inhabitants of 

 the district to secure some mementos of Scotland's liberator, that 

 some of them even collected the sawdust in bottles for preserva- 

 tion when the stump was cut up ! The tradition lending 

 interest to this historical tree is, that AVallace and several fol- 

 lowers on one occasion, when hotly pursued by the vindictive 

 Southerns, found welcome shelter and safety among its umbra- 

 geous foliage. 



The largest oak tree of which we have any record in Scotland 

 grew in the very old oak wood on the north side of Loch Arkeg 

 in Lochaber, where we learn from Walker, that in 1784 there 

 were manv trees from 10 to 14 feet in gjirth at 4 feet from the 

 ground. This one, however, measured at 4 feet above ground in 

 that year, 24 feet 6 inches. He does not state the condition in 

 which the tree then was, but all trace of it has now disappeared. 



From these records it will be observed that even the largest 

 oaks of which any record has come down to us in Scotland, pro- 

 bably from the difference of soil and climate, are greatly inferior 

 in dimensions to the large oaks in Southern Britain ; for such 

 well-known trees as the Wetherby Oak, which Mr Beevor informs 

 us measured at 4 feet from the ground 40 feet 6 inches, — while 

 there are others in England which are said to have been still 

 larger, — cpiite eclipses those found in our more northern climate. 

 Nor do any of the remains of indigenous oak forests, found either 

 submerged or embedded in peat in Scotland, lead to the supposi- 

 tion that their denizens had attained to greater sizes than those we 

 have mentioned. In Inverness-shire, at the head of Loch C4arry, 

 Sir T. Dick Lauder found the remains of a prostrate oak forest 

 upon the surface of the solid ground, among which he found one 

 tree with a clean stem, 23 feet in length and 16 feet in circum- 

 ference at the butt end and 11 feet towards the smaller end 

 under the fork. The stock whereon this oak had grown and 

 close to which it lay, was quite worn away in the centre, and so 

 hollowed out as to encircle a large and thriving self-sown birch 

 tree of more than 3 feet in girth. 



Of other oaks still existing in Scotland, and remarkable for 

 age and size, but probably little, if in some instances at all 

 noticed, we find notable examples in a few remaining trees of 

 the Jed Forest, in Eoxburghshire, where there is still to be seen 

 " The Capon Tree." It is a short-stemmed but very wide- 

 spreading oak, with a circumference at the base of 24 feet 

 3 inches. The legend attached to it is, that it formed the 

 trysting- place for the muster of the border clans in bygone 

 times ; although probably, from its name " Capon '*' — and of 

 which there are other trees similarly styled in different parts 

 of Scotland, — it served another purpose also, having pro- 



