270 
There is a charming old-fashioned garden attached to the house 
where are growing some striking shrubs. I noted Rhododendron 
b'lrhiihan, Chionanfhwi nrginica, 10 feet high and as much 
through, and Olmria ////>//. '.» feet high and 15 feet through. 
iinteum is perfectly at home here; one spike I saw 
carried twenty flowers. 
Castle Kennedy. 
Castle Kennedy is close to Loch Ryan, in Wigtownshire, and a 
long way to the south-west of Perthshire. The climate, whilst 
equally moist, is considerably warmer, and a different class 
of trees and shrubs is growing here. Escallonias, for example, 
especially E. m i , mth i, thrive as well as they do in Cornwall, 
and are evidently held in about the same esteem as Laurels in less 
favoured places. Callistemons were flowering freely, and Euca- 
'••"> feet high. Ohm, -la macrodonta, which I 
saw so fine at Inverewe, in Ross-shire, was here equally good. 
The prevailing type of Rhododendron is Himalayan, either the 
pure species (especially E. arboreum, E. Thomsoni, and B. cam- 
pamdatum) or hybrids in which their "blood" predominates. 
A further evidence of the character of the climate was afforded 
' '•'• /''<"'<' afthiopica growing in an open pond, and flowering 
I should think Castle Kennedy is one of the best watered inland 
demesnes in Britain. The gardens are situated chiefly on a neck 
of land between two lochs known as " Black " and ' ; White " 
respectively, and there are several ponds and minor pieces of 
water besides. From a landscape point of view, one of the 
remarkable features of the place is the amount of terracing rhat 
has been done. Many of the natural mounds and hollows have 
been squared and trimmed, the slopes made into terraces, and the 
ponds rounded. There are also formal elevated mounds from 
which good views of the gardens and lochs are to be seen. This 
kind of landscape art was more to the taste of a bygone time 
tnan _ it is to that of the present day. When newly done, its aspect 
must have been crude and hard, but the softening hand of time 
has done much to ameliorate its hard lines, and where an arboreal 
t grow, a thick, well-kept turf < 
vegetation does 
TJ\ tn y t v? f f thiS ? ha H o^ ^' KennTdy, what^lta "equally 
5 I p~ garden at Drum mond, and to the topiary work 
£& * - 
tvecLtlTLrf l t- J ^ theTe is * striki ^ avenue of large 
r P unk 7 ?eet ?n IZ^l (lt ^ n0t have be * n the lar ^ est ) had a 
L effect wU g EqUally Strikin g t0 me > and le8 « bizarre in 
talleft wJ% ? a 7t U \ e ° f Gu P™*»* macrocarpa; one of the 
fKelS^Krt 5 a ? other ' Ranching low/was 9 feet 
leS snec imf nf ° feet c fr <^ the ground. I saw many excel- 
6 feet SHts n t an °ll S ^ "' Abia ^ W «^«^ irthin ^ 
ana y* feet in girth; the rare Himalayan A. Pimlrow, 60 feet 
