CHAP. II. BRITISH ISLANDS. 99 



sycamore is 12 1 ft., and it is upwards of 70 ft. high. The girt 

 of a sweet chestnut, at 18 in. from the ground, is 10 ft. 7 in., 

 and it is above 80 ft. high. Mr. M'Nab, my factor, adds, 

 * Had I measured them at the surface of the ground, they would 

 have been one third more, in consequence of the roots spreading 

 so much as they do.^ Mr. Hannay sold the property of Bar- 

 gaily to my father in 1792." 



" It is recorded of Mr. Heron, that he went to visit a garden 

 in the neighbourhood of London, and very much astonished 

 the principal gardener, to whom he was a stranger, with the 

 botanical knowledge he displayed ; and the gardener having 

 shown him an exotic, which he felt confident Mr. Heron had 

 never seen, he exclaimed, on Mr. Heron's readily naming it, 

 *Then, Sir, you must either be the devil or Andrew Heron of 

 Bargally / thereby intimating that Mr, Heron was proverbial, in 

 those days, as a botanist, even with those who had never seen 

 him." 



Dr. Walker, in his Essays (p. 32.), mentions several firs and 

 pines at Bargally, of large dimensions, which no longer exist. A 

 fir, he says, which was planted in 1697, measured, in 17S0, 90 ft. 

 in height. He states that the oldest and largest arbor vitae in 

 Scotland was at Bargally : it measured, in 1780, 5 ft. 4 in. in 

 girt at 4 ft. from the ground, and was 40 ft. high. He also 

 mentions a flowering ash (O'rnus europae^a), which was cut 

 down in 1780, and 7 ft- of the trunk quartered to make four 

 axles to carts ; it was a remarkably handsome tree, 6 ft. 3 in in 

 circumference at 4 ft. from the ground, and 50 ft. high. Dr. 

 Walker mentions large evergreen oaks, horsechestnuts, and 

 many other species, of extraordinary dimensions. The present 

 proprietor is much attached to this beautiful place, takes the 

 greatest care of the trees, and has lately repaired the tomb of 

 their planter. 



We took notes ourselves (in 1831) of several remarkable 

 trees at Bargally, including a large lime tree and a number 

 of beautiful variegated hollies, from 20 ft. to 26 ft. in height, and 

 with trunks from 15 in. to 2 ft. in diameter. Altogether the 

 place is one of very great interest, not only on account of its 

 venerable foreign trees and the tomb of Heron, but from the 

 romantic beauty of the situation, and from the district in w^hich 

 it lies being one of the finest, in point of scenery, in the west of 

 Scotland. 



Dunkeld, where, it appears, the Weymouth Pine was first in- 

 troduced into Scotland, was, in 1727, the property of James 

 Murray, Duke of Athol ; the friend and distant relative of John 

 and Archibald, Dukes of Argyll. Dunkeld is celebrated for 

 having been one of the first places where the larch was planted 

 in Scotland ; the plants of which, it is said, were sent from 



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