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rich sylvan features, and the avenue in front of the mansion is 
composed of lines of fine old trees, between which an arched 
vista is maintained towards Dunsinane Hill, standing con- 
spicuously in the distance. This Gothic arch reaches a height 
of 70 to 80 feet, and is 80 yards in length. Several of the trees, 
particularly the beeches, which form the avenue are of great 
size, the largest of them girthing 13 feet 9 inches at 5 feet from 
the ground. The preservation of this unique arboreal feature 
is also maintained by means of regular pruning. In the 
immediate vicinity of this elegant mansion-house are many 
fine trees. Among these is a great silver fir fully 100 feet 
high, with a girth of 13 feet 11 inches, and with a diameter of 
branches of 60 feet, resting for the most part on the ground 
around the bole. Its Abies Pinsapo like habit puzzled some of 
the members. A Weymouth pine, Pinus Strobus, near it, with 
eleven main stems growing straight up from a bole about a foot 
from the ground, like so many Lombardy poplars, was a great 
curiosity. The bole girthed 14 feet 4 inches. There were also 
seen a grand scarlet oak, some fine Spanish chestnuts, and 
many tall and graceful limes. 
Lady Lansdowne came upon the terrace of the mansion- 
house, and met several of the officials, who thanked her for her 
kindness. At Meikleour the British Association party, who 
were headed by Professor Bayley Balfour, the President of the 
Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, caught up the arbori- 
culturists. They only numbered some five-and-twenty—sixty 
being expected, but the rainy morning at Edinburgh had 
stopped a good many—and of that number about a third were 
ladies. They had been considerably delayed in the start. for 
Scone, but they saw over the park and most of the other 
features around the palace. After a short walk to the top of 
the slope overlooking the river, where a lovely reach of it was 
seen and greatly admired, the party, thus reinforced, drove off 
for Murthly, passing through the pretty rural villages of 
Meikleour, Spittalfield, and Caputh. The Tay was again 
crossed by the handsome new bridge of Caputh, built a few 
years ago in place of an ancient ferry, which, when the river 
was in flood, was often perilous to use. 
MURTHLY. 
On the south bank of the Tay, from Caputh Bridge to Birnam, 
a distance of about four miles, lie the richly- wooded and 
extensive policies of Murthly Castle, the seat of Mr W. Steuart 
lothringham, in which the rest of the day was to be spent. 
