300 THE SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURISTS [Sept. 



Avay of knowing his character, next to transacting business with him. 

 Our " brake " company was of a miscellaneous kind, from the 

 whaling captain of the North Pole beside the driver, to Perthshire 

 foresters, Cumberland wood wardens, and land agents from York and 

 Warwick shires. We were an amicable, joyous company. On 

 crossing the English border, our northern arboriculturists must 

 needs sing out " Scots wha hae," followed by the whole company 

 afterwards trollincc forth " Heart of oak." All ancient local 

 animosities were felt to be as thoroughly buried as the fossil 

 scorpions which geologists have lately found in the flagstones in 

 the bed of the neighbouring river Esk. The present writer at least 

 was struck by the high mental and business calibre of the southern 

 woodsmen. They certainly require no rigid routine of continental 

 forest school traininsr. 



Some of the company made a hurried run up to Woodhouselee 

 farm-steading, to inspect Major Dudgeon's compensating lever silo. 

 Instead of stones, a series of fine levers, at the farther end of which 

 iron circular cwt. weights are attached by a slit in their centre, whilst 

 their farther ends rest in iron ratchets on an upright, from which 

 the pressure spreads equally on the hay below the wooden platform. 

 As the pressure becomes spent from each lever, it starts from its 

 ratchet, when another weight is placed on its farther end after it 

 has been replaced in a higher hole. A pressure of 100 lbs. to the 

 square inch can be thus laid on the ensilage. Indeed, about 90 

 tons may thus be forced on the mass below the platform. The 

 cows prefer food thus prepared to that coming from ordinary silos. 

 Indeed, the bower has raised his offers when this food was promised 

 to be served. 



Netherby woods, under the guidance of Mr. Baty, whose lecture in 

 November's Forestry showed how the returns from 2800 acres of 

 land, with an agricultui-al value of 7s. 6d. per acre, had yielded 

 13s, 8d. to 18s. 7d. of profit per acre from thinnings! Here was 

 a practical demonstration by the best authority how timber-growing 

 pays ! But, unfortunately, our leader was passing through a period 

 of heavy domestic afthction ; and three hours' wanderings through 

 the policies, containing many individual trunks of surpassing grace, 

 left no time to overtake the 800-acre wood originally set down in 

 our programme as a type of the celebrated estate improvements. 

 The marked geologic differences in the soil served to give a 

 character to arboreal growth different from the district w^e had been 

 traversing throughout the day. No doubt this was taken sufficient 

 advantage of by assiduous care and skill everywhere manifest, 

 whether in the long lawn-trimmed walks, or in the exquisitely 

 beautiful flower borders before the hall. In the Pinetum "rows a 



