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scape gardening founded by Le Notre, and their vigorous health 
at the end of a couple of centuries, which bears token of 
the care displayed in their management, may carry them safely 
on for generations. On the west side of the avenue the trees 
have evidently been pollarded in their youth, and from their 
stout, short trunks, about 8 feet high, they throw up numerous 
massive limbs to an average height of about 90 feet, which form 
grandly umbrageous heads. One of the largest, and, counting 
from the south entrance gate, the third tree in the row, girthed 
14 feet of stem at 5 feet up, and threw aloft eight giant limbs 
thickly canopied with healthy foliage. The trees in the row on the 
opposite, or east side of the avenue, have been allowed to grow 
naturally, and have formed shapely boles of considerable length, 
carrying well-balanced heads of branches, thickly clothed with 
foliage. The stem of the second tree from the gate girthed 
12 feet 2 inches at 5 feet up, with about 25 feet of a clean, 
straight bole to the first branch. Altogether, that avenue, when 
once seen, was not likely to be forgotten. 
A little distance outside the south entrance, the estate saw-mill 
and timber-yard were seen, but time would not permit a lengthened 
inspection, and the party retraced their steps along the south 
drive towards the mansion, near which, in the park on the right, 
a fine old walnut was seen, about 50 feet high, with a stem girthing 
12 feet, but hollow and decaying in the centre. What attracted 
most attention from the party was the heavy crop of walnuts 
which the old tree was bearing, and speculation was rife among 
them as to whether the nuts would ripen this season at such a 
high altitude. A gigantic beech, with a remarkably twisted bole, 
of about 10 feet in girth and 40 feet in length, was estimated to 
be 117 feet high; and a fine old cedar, with a wide-spreading 
head, much damaged by storms, and girthing 14 feet 6 inches at 
the usual point 5 feet from the ground, was the last of the grand 
trees around the mansion to be inspected. 
The company were then invited to enter the mansion, where 
they were cordially received by Mr Dundas in the library. In 
the course of a most interesting speech welcoming the party to 
Arniston, Mr Dundas gave a brief history of the family, and the 
efforts each generation had made to adorn their ancestral home 
and beautify the landscape around it; the first of the great 
improvements, including the laying out of the grand avenues, 
being begun as far back as the year 1668, by Robert Dundas, 
