EARLY TREE-PLANTING IN SCOTLAND. I 5 



Cadzow Forest were planted by David, Earl of Huntingdon, 

 afterwards David I. (1124-1153), and the Yews of Inch Lonaig, 

 Loch Lomond, at the time of Robert the Bruce (1306-29), to 

 supply bows for his men, seem to be supported only by constant 

 repetition, not by any proof or authority. John Walker (i 731- 

 1803), whose writings on Scottish trees are a great source of 

 original information, expressed the opinion that for the period 

 of near one thousand years after the departure of the Romans, 

 it was " not likely that any foreign trees were established in 

 England" (27), and I have heard Professor W. Somerville 

 make a similar statement. Walker remarks that the first 

 " barren " trees planted in Scotland were those of exotic growth 

 (28), but this requires qualifications, as will appear later on. 

 He gives the Elder ^ as the first of such kinds of trees planted, 

 and the Plane (Sycamore) as next in antiquity, adding that 

 these are the only two barren trees planted in Scotland till 

 towards the middle of the seventeenth century (27). Loudon 

 writes of the Spanish Chestnut and Beech as probably introduced 

 into Scotland by the Romans, and perhaps reintroduced by the 

 religious orders in the Middle Ages (15). This has no certain 

 sound, and, if I might venture on another conjecture, it is that 

 the source of these and other kinds of trees may have been 

 France, during the long period of intercourse between Scotland 

 and that country which followed the alliance begun under John 

 Balliol in 1295, or from Scottish connections with the Low 

 Countries. 



The devastations and havoc of the Wars of Succession and 

 Independence, at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the 

 fourteenth centuries, and their after-effects, did much to waste 

 the tree-growth of Scotland. With the beginning of Stuart 

 times a spirit of concern becomes apparent regarding the wood- 

 lands, as is shown by the contents and tenor of various Acts of 

 the Scottish Parliaments (i). 



As early as 1424, there is an Act imposing a penalty on 

 stealers of greenwood and destroyers of trees. In 1457, 

 tenants are ordained to plant woods and trees, make hedges 

 and sow broom; and in 1503 the earlier Acts are supplemented 

 by a further measure, based on the ground of " the wood of 

 Scotland being utterly distroyit." That this was an exaggera- 



^ A native species occurs in neolithic deposits near Edinburgh (24). Further, 

 it is a fruit-bearer. 



