1885.] EDINBURGH NEWS NOTES. 217 



EDINBURGH NEWS NOTES. 



THIS year visitors to the Scottish Avboricultural Society's annual 

 meeting can only reckon on a day in Edinburgh, \vliich will 

 be crowded Avith the proper business of the Convocation. What need 

 then is there of any directions where to go and what to see away 

 from the Botanic Gardens themselves ? Still, odd minutes may not 

 be unprofitably spent immediately outside the student's class-room. 

 Around this meeting-place the magnificent show of roses will at 

 once attract the eye ; while the broad walk traversing the length 

 of the glass houses leads directly to the xVrboretum ; and printed 

 labels point the tourists to the Palm House or the Eock Garden. 



Immediately beyond the central entrance from the garden will 

 be found the plot of the Arboretum's Rosacece ; and the arrange- 

 ment there of the different varieties of this natural order is fairly 

 typical of the similar treatment of the other representative orders 

 of British trees and shrubs, whether along the walk which the roses 

 bound towards the east, or along the other walks north and south ; 

 the subdivisions of which are duly indicated by well-printed labels 

 containing both the popular and botanical names. The stranger 

 has here one of the three views, the others are Blackford and 

 Artliur Seat hill-tops, which must always be taken fully to appre- 

 ciate the landscape effects of the serried crags and tapering spires of 

 the grey metropolis of the north. "When the natural wood replaces 

 the present saplings of the Arboretum, Sir Robert Christison's ideas 

 of the landscape capacities of the spot will be realized. Surely the 

 Arboricultural Society might pass a resolution calling on the 

 Treasury to give the adequate support originally anticipated for 

 this national undertaking. 



In the Garden as in the Arboretum proper, traces of Mr. Lind- 

 say's energetic management are not to be sought for. The Eock 

 Garden and surrounding Pinetum will fully repay a leisurely half- 

 hour visit ; while the unusual development of leafage and foliage 

 — specially in the variegated forms of Taxus, Biota, Eetinospora, 

 and other conifers — may even in August be observable. 



Outside the Herbarium building, huge stumps of Ballochbui 

 Pine remind the visitor that the Scottish School of Forestry and 

 Museum is yet but a wilderness project, having no local habitation. 

 And the query is as naturally suggested, Why divorce it from the 

 site originally proposed ? Is the Eoyal Botanic Garden an institu- 

 tion for practical researches in applied science, or a public pleasure- 

 ground ? is a question which has been raised from two otlier 

 standpoints during the past winter. It may be most readily 



