ON THE OLD AND RKMARKABLE YEW TREES IN SCOTLAND. 389 



able to tree life. It is within tlie churchyard, aTid is protected 

 by a walled enclosure 33 feet by 20 feet. But depredation has 

 not been tlius altogether prevented. Two railed openings and 

 a railed gate allow inspection from outside of a iuass of vegetation 

 so confused, that the whole enclosure seems simply full of young 

 yews and vigorous spray. It is only by brushing through this 

 mass on obtaining access into the interior, and not easily even 

 then, that an adequate idea can be formed of what is still extant of 

 the ancient tree. The late Sir Robert Christison, who took the 

 deepest interest in all things arboricultural, and made a study of 

 the growths of trees scientifically, was much taken up with the 

 Fortingal Yew, and has written a most elaborate monograph on 

 it and its probable age, to which ^ we have been much indebted 

 for many hints and conclusions regarding its history and probable 

 progress in growth and decline. From data supplied by com- 

 parative measurements taken over a series of seasons, and from 

 many examples of the annual growth of the yew tree at different 

 ages, and verifying as far as possible the formula of De Candolle 

 as to the increment of very old yew trees, Sir K. Christison found 

 that his investigations and minute observations on exact lines 

 "tended to show that a healthy yew, favourably circumstanced, 

 should grow for the first sixty or seventy years at the rate of an 

 inch of radius every twelve years, or exactly half-an-inch in girth 

 annnally." The probable rate of growth in this country, during 

 the first century of the life of a healthy yew tree, under favourable 

 circumstances as to soil and shelter, may be pretty accurately taken 

 from a tree at present growing among the ruins of Dryburgh 

 Abbey. The soil is a deep rich loam of a sandy nature. The tree 

 is planted in the south transept, and opposite the tombstone and 

 last resting-place of Sir Walter Scott. A tablet of stone in the 

 wall on the north side of the Erskine burying-ground, bears that 

 this yew tree " was planted from the seed-bed by the Earl of 

 Buchan, 1789." It is now, August 1887, 3 feet 8 inches in girth 

 at three feet from the ground ; at the ground line it is exactly 4 feet. 

 The tree, which is very vigorous and healthy, covers nearly the 

 whole transept gable ; and is 60 feet high, with a bole of 35 feet, 

 and is of a very erect habit of growth, partly due to its peculiarly 

 isolated and sheltered situation. If we therefore accept this tree's 

 progress from the seed-bed to the present date (saj, a hundred 



^ Edinburgh Botauical Society's Transactions, vol. xiii. , pp. 217, 394 

 410. 



