184 THE OLD AND REMAEKABLE 



of dealing with the produce of sewage meadows will be opened 

 up, which may greatly enhance their value; but at the present 

 time I am well satisfied with the results as carried out upon my 

 own farm, having found it to be both successful and safe. 



This report may have comparatively little bearing on the 

 great body of farmers, for few farms have any opportunity of 

 receiving town sewage; but the number of farms suitable for 

 irrigation is very large. My experience of the value, of the 

 sewage which can be collected about a farm itself, leads me in 

 my journeys through the country to observe how much is going 

 to waste, and this may be the means of drawing the attention of 

 some of my brother farmers to the subject, and no one who has 

 not had practical experience of it can form any idea of the value 

 about a farm of even one acre of such land. 



THE OLD AND REMARKABLE HORSE CHESTNUT TREES 



IN SCOTLAND. 



By Robert Hutchison of Carlowrie. 



[Premium — Five Sovereigns.] 



The horse chestnut {^sculus Hipyocastanum) does not appear 

 to have ever been largely cultivated as a timber tree in Scotland. 

 Probably, from the brittle nature of its wood, it has never 

 attained a front rank among the hard wooded trees suitable to 

 the Scottish climate, as a valuable timber-producing tree for 

 economic purposes. But whether this be the reason or not, the 

 fact remains that our old friend Professor Walker, in his 

 Catalogue of Ptemarkable Trees in Scotland, only cites four 

 specimens of the horse chestnut, namely, at " Bargaly, in Gallo- 

 way," at " Hatton in Mid-Lothian," and two trees of the species 

 at " New Posso, in Tweeddale," which he says, writing in 1780, 

 are probably the oldest and the largest in North Britain, and 

 that they were then known to be about 150 years old. Dr 

 Walker in his memoir further states, that " the planting of the 

 horse chestnut in Britain," in his day, was not " of a very old 

 date." Pieference will be further made to these two individual 

 trees at New Posso, or as it is now called Dalwick, in this chapter, 

 which Dr Walker in 1780, and subsequently Gilpin, and Sir T. 

 Dick Lauder in 1826, considered the oldest, largest, and finest 

 in Scotland at the time they wrote. The measurements given 

 by Dr Walker of the only four trees he quotes, being only from 

 6 feet 10 inches at 4 feet from the ground for the smallest, to 11 

 feet 4 inches for the largest, show conclusively that in his day 

 the horse chestnut had not been held in much esteem for 

 extensive planting in Scotland during the early years of its 

 introduction from its native habitats into Great Britain. 



