1884.] . WOODS AND WILDS OF SHETLAND. 255 



topped their fence and measure at the ground three feet in circum- 

 ference. 



This is the utmost success whicli tree-planting has attained in 

 Unst, and it is doubtful whether anything better than dwarf timber 

 could be grown in any part of that island in any aspect, however 

 favourable. The prize plantations of Shetland are situated in a little 

 valley near Lerwick, whose Norse designation would sound strangely 

 in southern ears, for Englishmen have forgotten the sound of their 

 original language, though they are proud of their Scandinavian blood. 

 On this spot there are two well-sheltered small groves, whose planter. 

 Dr. Arthur Edmonston, received a premium, adjudged by the 

 Highland Society of Scotland, in 1824, * for having planted the 

 greatest number of trees on the largest extent of ground, between 

 February 1st, 1822, and "November 1st, 182-4, of any proprietor or 

 tenant in Zetland.' It will not surprise those who have climbed the 

 hills of England and Scotland, and found the Sycamore at a greater 

 altitude than other trees on exposed sites, to learn that the groves I 

 have just mentioned are of Sycamore entirely. I admired, but did 

 not measure these trees ; they are probably as high as an under- 

 sized farmhouse, and equal in circumference to a beneficed 

 clergyman — that is, considerably beyond the girth of a curate, and 

 less than that of a grazier in good times. 



A few other groves may be named in Shetland, and among them 

 that at Busta, on the mainland, the largest island, where Mr. Gilford 

 planted Sycamores near his house, on the very spot where the earliest 

 Dutch fishermen pitched their trading booths. Many other kinds of 

 trees have been tried, but none have withstood the wind and sea 

 better than the Sycamore. Mr Thomas Edmonston, who possesses 

 the salver aw^arded to his uncle, Dr. Arthur Edmonston, informed me 

 that in the experiments at Unst, evergreens were found specially 

 unsuited to the climate, and both the Oak and Spanish Chestnut 

 refused to grow, Nothing from the Mediterranean would root and 

 flourish so far up in the North Sea. The list of trees and shrubs 

 which did succeed is limited entirely to natives of Scandinavia. 

 Dr. Samuel Edmonston's list of most successful specimens comprises, 

 first and foremost, the Sycamore, which succeeded best of all, and 

 after it, the ]\Iountain Ash, Elm, Ash, Norway ]\[aple, Laburnum, 

 Mountain Pine, Norway Spruce, Birch, and Elder. 



I may here remark that the Hazel is reported as having failed at 

 Balta, and yet it is one of the indigenous plants of Shetland, found 

 in many of the little holms in the lochs, where it is not subject to 

 the cropping of cattle, which destroys it on the scatholds. It is found 

 growing wild with the Mountain Ash, Honeysuckle, Briar, and 

 Wniow on several of the islets, or elsewhere, when protected from the 



