562 Tkc your mil of l^^orcsby. 



than by anything else. The planting of Blairadam had become classical 

 through a touch of the magic wand of that enchanter, Sir Walter Scott. 

 To this he owed the record of what had been done at Blairadam since 1733, 

 which, together with directions and instructions for future management, 

 was embodied in a book which was written and printed in 1834 by his 

 grandfather, William Adam, the Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury 

 Court in Scotland. Blairadam in its original unimproved state was a wild 

 unsheltered moor, lying from 500 to 700 feet above the sea, with a certain 

 amount of natural beauty, but only having one enclosure and one tree, an 

 ash, which, though it still grew vigorously, was far outtopped by the younger 

 generation. It was an unpromising land to work upon, but he knew of 

 no instance in the improvement of waste land that more thoroughly illus- 

 trated the value and advantage of judicious, continuous, and persistent 

 planting than this estate. It would take too long to go into the whole 

 story of the planting and improvements, but these are recorded in a book 

 which owes its origin to a suggestion coming direct from Sir Walter Scott, 

 and the story is related by Lockhart in his life of Scott in the following 

 words : — 



" Since I have obtained permission to quote from this private 

 volume, I may as well mention that I was partly moved to ask 

 that favour by the author's own confession that his ' Blair Adam 

 from 1733 to 1834,' originated in a suggestion of Scott's. ' It 

 was,' says the judge, 'on a fine Sunday, lying on the grassy summit 

 of Benarty, above its craggy brow, that Sir Walter said, looking first on 

 the flat expanse of Kinross -shire (on the south side of the Ochils), and 

 then at the space which Blair Adam fills between the hill of Drumglow 

 (the highest of the Cleish hills) and the valley of Loch Ore, what an 

 extraordinary thing it is that here to the north so little appears to have 

 been done, when there are so many proprietors to work upon it ! and to 

 the south, here is a district of country entirely made by the efforts of one 

 family in three generations, and one of them amongst us in the full 

 enjoyment of what has been done by his two predecessors and himself." 

 Blair Adam, as I have always heard, had a wild, uncomely, and inhos- 

 pitable appearance before its improvements were begun. It would be 

 most curious to record in writing its original state, and trace its gradual 

 progress to its present condition.' Upon this suggestion, enforced by the 

 approbation of the other members present, the President of the Blair Adam 

 Club commenced arranging materials for what constitutes a most instruc- 

 tive as well as entertaining history of the agricultural and arbor icultural 

 progress of his domain in course of a hundred years, under his grand- 

 father, his father, and himself And Sir Walter had only suggested to his 

 friend in Kinross-shire what he was resolved to put into practice with 

 regard to his own improvements on Tweed-side ; for he began at precisely 

 the same period to keep a regular journal of all his rural transactions, 

 under the title of 'Sylva Abbotsfordiensis.' 



The silver fir at Blair Adam has always flourished luxuriantly, and 

 was the most remarkable species of tree on the estate. There were four 



