ARBORICULTURE IN DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY. 295 
Pinus austriaca, P. Laricio, and P. Pinaster have done remarkably 
well; the P. Pinaster especially on light open soil near the Solway, 
where many good specimens of it are to be found. 
Spruce has not been so extensively planted, although it thrives 
and grows well. <Alies Douglasii has not been much planted as a 
forest tree, but where it has been inserted in a favourable soil, with 
moderate shelter, it has grown uncommonly well. One of the 
oldest, and probably among the largest, specimens in Scotland, 
stands on the lawn in the flower-garden at Jardine Hall, Dumfries- 
shire, and is a picture of health. 
Larch has thriven well in former years, though that of recent 
planting has not done so well. The principal causes of failure are 
blight and blister, though in many cases it is traceable to being 
planted on stiff, retentive, clayey soils, altogether unsuitable to the 
successful growth of the larch. 
Silver fir grows to a large size, and several are to be found over 
one hundred feet high, with large clean boles. 
Considerable attention has been paid to the planting of Coniferze 
of recent introduction, fine collections being found at nearly all the 
large mansions in the three counties. Perhaps the most com- 
prehensive collection is to be found in the pinetum at Castle 
Kennedy, Wigtownshire, the property of the Earl of Stair, in 
which there are many rare and beautiful specimens. One of the 
finest collections of coniferous trees in Dumfriesshire lately stood at 
Lann Hall, but it was unfortunately destroyed by the storms of 
1883-84. Any one visiting the counties will be astonished at the 
great amount of damage done by these storms to the woods. Where 
there previously stood many waving plantations, there is now to be 
seen nothing but upturned roots and broken trunks, with here and 
there a lonely survivor. While trees that had stood for ages were 
blown down, those which suffered most were from thirty to seventy 
years of age. Perhaps the greatest damage was done on the Duke 
of Buccleuch’s estates. On the Langholm estate over 20,000 trees 
were upturned, and on Drumlanrig estate it was estimated that 
120,000 trees were blown down in the December gale, and as 
many more on the 26th January. Several thousand pounds’ worth 
of timber was also destroyed on Sir Robert Jardine’s Castlemilk 
estate in Dumfriesshire ; while Lord Selkirk’s estate in Kirkeud- 
brightshire suffered the loss of 20,000 trees, and mostly every other 
estate suffered proportionally as great a loss. 
So much fallen timber at one time caused a great glut in the 
