176 ox THE OLD AND EEMARKABLE 



but a few inches less." This tree, however, notwithstanding 

 diligent inquiry last year, we have been unable to identify. 



But, returning to notice the planting of the beech in formal 

 lines for picturesque effect, we need only refer to many beautiful 

 avenues in other counties of Scotland, for illustrations of them 

 are familiar to every lover of trees and the picturesque. The 

 beauty and stately grandeur of the beech avenue at Freelands, 

 Perthshire, is well known. The trees in this avenue girth from 

 12 feet to 17 feet 6 inches at breast high, and are in healthy 

 vigour. A very good representation of formal planting in line 

 is found in a row of beeches of large and imposing dimensions 

 near Stanley, Perthshire. One tree in this group, conspicuous 

 by its massive trunk covered with smooth silvery bark, is 83 feet 

 in height, with a bole of 45 feet of measurable timber, and girths 

 15 feet 8 inches at 1 foot, and 14 feet 7 inches at 5 feet above 

 ground. The practice of utilizing the beech, from its hardihood 

 and power of resisting the blast and affording shelter along 

 exposed roadsides, was very common, and its use as a screen 

 was frequently resorted to. In high situations, or in wide un- 

 timberecl tracts, its use as a hedge for such purposes is also not 

 uncommon. Its adaptation to shelter, and as forming a roadside 

 avenue to protect from the fury of the winter's blast, or to shade 

 from the sultry heat of summer, is well illustrated by the well 

 known beeches on the road between Dunk eld and Pitlochry, Perth- 

 shire. Another 'beautiful and highly picturesque beech avenue 

 exists at Moncrieffe, Perthshire. It is about 700 yards in length, 

 and the trees average 10 feet 6 inches at h7'east high, many being 

 above that circumference. This avenue, it is supposed, was origin- 

 ally a hedge planted about the time of the building of the present 

 mansion-house at Moncrieffe,in 1679, and gradually thinned out 

 as the plants required more space. In the centre of this avenue 

 there are the interesting remains of a group of standing stones, 

 commonly called " Druidical Circles," so frequently met with in 

 several districts of Scotland. At a high altitude in the Ochils, at 

 Glendevon, in light gravelly loam on gravel subsoil, close to the 

 banks of the Devon, there is another fine old beech avenue about 

 300 yards in length. The trees stand in too close proximity to 

 each other to admit of their free development, but they girth 

 from 7 feet to 9 feet 6 inches at 3 feet above ground, and form a 

 good test of the ability of the beech to thrive and grow into 

 timber dimensions at so high an altitude, being 800 feet above 

 sea-level. Other single beeches are found at equally if not higher 

 altitudes, as at Cleish Castle, 580 feet, where it will be observed 

 from the returns in the appendix, that it girths in many cases 17 

 feet and 17 feet 6 inches at 1 foot, and from 10 feet to 13 feet 

 6 inches at 5 feet above ground, with tall handsome boles ; — and 

 at Dolphin ton, Lanarkshire, at 834 feet altitude, it girths 10 feet 



