90 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES. PARTI. 
length. There is a very old tree at Riccarton, near Edinburgh, 
which has been described and figured by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. 
The trunk is much injured and decayed; but its boughs and 
foliage are of luxuriant growth; the branches hang down to the 
ground, and, in many places, have rooted into it. The trunk is 
27 ft. in girt at the surface of the ground, and the branches 
cover an area of 77 ft. in diameter. (Jdzd., p. 268.) 
Dr. Walker mentions (p.213.) some sweet chestnuts which 
he found, about 1760, in a thriving condition in the Island of 
Inchmahona, in the Lake of Menteith, in Perthshire, where there 
was a priory founded by King David I. Dr. Patrick Graham 
measured some of these trees in 1813, and found the trunks to 
be 18 ft. in circumference at 6 ft. from the ground. (General 
Report of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 254.) He thinks they were then 
300 years old, or upwards, which would carry the date of their 
planting back to the commencement of the sixteenth century. 
According to Dr. Walker, as before quoted (p. 34.), the sweet 
chestnut at Finhaven was both the largest tree of the kind in 
Scotland, and the first tree planted there by art. ‘“ In the year 
1760, a great part of the trunk of this remarkable tree, and 
some of its branches, remained. The measures of this tree were 
taken before two justices of the peace, in the year 1744. By 
an attested copy of this measurement, it appeared, at that time, 
that at half a foot above the ground, it was 42 ft. 83 in. in 
circumference. As this chestnut appears, from its dimensions, 
to have been planted about 500 years ago, it may be presumed 
to be the oldest planted tree that is extant, or that we have any 
account of, in Scotland.” (Walker's Essays, p. 29.) Sir ‘Thomas 
Dick Lauder states, that, ‘‘ in the possession of Skene of Car- 
riston, there is a table made of the wood of this tree, having an 
engraved plate, on which are marked its dimensions. The castle 
of Finhaven was an ancient seat of the Earls of Crawford.” 
(Lauder’s Gilpin, vol. i. p. 269.) 
To the research of Dr. Walker we are indebted for the fol- 
lowing list of trees in Scotland, with the name of the places 
where they were introduced : — 
1664. Tilia europea, lime. Taymouth. 
1678. Salix alba, white willow. Prestonfield. 
1682. Abies Picea and excélsa, silver and pitch fir. Inverary. 
Acer, maple. Inverary. 
1690. Juglans régia, walnut. Kinross. 
1692. Carpinus Bétulus, hornbeam. Drumlanerig. 
1695. Cérasus lusitanica, the Portugal laurel. —_ Inverary. 
(Gard. Mag., vol. ii. p. 178.) 
1696. Populus nigra, black poplar. Hamilton. 
1705. C¥tisus alpinus, alpine laburnum. — Panmure. 
1709, Aisculus Hippocastanum, horsechestnut. New Posso. 
