298 THE SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURISTS [Sept. 



THE SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURISTS IN THE 

 VICINITY OF CARLISLE. 



WAVEELEY STATION, Edinburgh, on August 5th, was the 

 rendezvous for the annual excursion of the Scottish Arbori- 

 cultural Society, under the guidance of Dr. Cleghorn and Mr. 

 Dunn, this time for two days to Langholm, Carlisle, and Lowther, 

 near Penrith. "A doubtful day," said more than one of those 

 wearing the fir-sprig emblem as the early morning train started for 

 Langholm. 



The last part of the day's programme was to compass the 

 JSTetherby Woods, which w^ere a tangible solution on a great scale 

 that timber-growing pays. It seemed a pity that so v/ide an area 

 was proposed. Had not the Times just suggested that British 

 and American tourists seek too much a rapid bird's-eye view of a 

 district ; better far explore a small portion of it in detail, if the 

 mind is to carry from it fixed and pleasing ideas, and not a chaotic 

 jumble. Did not the coniiguration of the country on this railway 

 very markedly suggest the influence of physical configuration and 

 soil on tree-growth ? Such were the two clues for gaining clear 

 ideas of passing objects, suggested on this journey. 



The districts above and beneath Langholm gave scope enough 

 for gaining such ideas. It was traversed after all, under a fair 

 sky, in brakes, under the guidance of Mr. Doughty, and in the 

 company of Mr. Maxwell of Munches, Major Dudgeon, and the 

 English contingent of the sister society, wearing oak leaves, who 

 joined us at breakfast. We thus formed a body of travellers, 

 adorned with leafy emblems, attracting no small admiration from 

 factory operatives at dinner-time, having previously startled the 

 browsing sheep on the high uplands above the thriving w^oollen 

 factories. We first rode up into a sort of cul-dc-sac containing 

 Burnfoot and Langholm policies, surnioimted by bare green hills, 

 with singularly even summits, at once recalling Washington Irving's 

 remark that the mountains in AValter Scott's country had all a 

 similar physiography. Two waters descend from the vast rounded 

 gathering - ground, the tableland of southern Scotland, which is 

 indeed the waterslied of the Tweed and tributary streams on the 

 Eoxburghshire side, into the thiclc-wooded valleys we were driving- 

 through, wliere a thick alluvial covering hides the sorely contorted 

 and jointed silurian rocks. At many a point along the ascending 

 roadsides, these rocks come right to the surface at the sky-line. 

 Has this country of Telford of Eskdale Moor, or Malcolm of 

 Persian renown, whose monument on the outlying ridge above 



