THE OLD FOREST OF GLENMORE. 103 



as straight as possible for forty feet, being extremely 

 valuable, so much so that it is said the timber of 

 Rothiemurchus often yielded a revenue of over 

 ;i 8,000 per annum. 



A singular record is preserved of the old forest 

 of Glenmore, which was almost wholly felled at the 

 end of the last and beginning of the present century. 



The forest was purchased by William Osbourne 

 of Hull, of the Duke of Gordon. When it had been 

 entirely cut down, he presented the duke with a plank 

 cut from the largest tree produced in the forest, which 

 now stands (or used to stand) in the entrance-hall 

 of Gordon Castle. It is about six feet long, and 

 measures five feet five inches broad, having a brass 

 plate affixed to it, on which is inscribed : " In the year 

 1783 William Osbourne, Esquire, Merchant of Hull, 

 purchased of the Duke of Gordon the forest of Glen- 

 more, the whole of which he cut down in the space of 

 twenty-two years, and built during that time, at the 

 mouth of the river Spey, where never vessel was built 

 before, forty-seven sail of ships, of upwards of 19,000 

 tons burden. The largest of them, of 1,050 tons, and 

 three others little inferior in size, are now in the ser- 

 vice of His Majesty and the Honourable East India 

 Company. This undertaking was completed at the 

 expense (of labour only) of about ,70,000. To His 

 Grace the Duke of Gordon this plank is offered, as a 

 specimen of the growth of one of the trees in the 

 above forest, by His Grace's most obedient servant^ 

 William Osbourne. 1806." 



In England the seeds of the Scotch pine are usually 

 sown about the middle of April, and in Scotland some- 

 what later, about the end of the month or beginning 



