IN THE HIGHLANDS 247 



I started work in the early spring of 1864 by running 

 a fence across the neck of the peninsula from sea to sea, 

 to keep out the sheep. I was very young then (not 

 being of age when the place was bought), and perfectly 

 ignorant of everything connected with forestry and 

 gardening, having never had any permanent home, and 

 having been brought up a great deal on the Continent; 

 but I had all my life longed to begin gardening and 

 planting, and had, I fully believe, inherited a love for 

 trees and flowers from my father and grandfather. 



My mother undertook the whole trouble of house- 

 building, and I set myself to the rest of the work with a 

 determination to succeed if possible. Oh that I had 

 only known then what I know now, and could have 

 started with my present experience of over forty years ! 

 For example, I had never heard of the dwarf Pinus 

 montana. Had I known its merits then, as I know them 

 now, I would have begun by planting a thick belting 

 of it among the rocks round my peninsula, just above 

 high-water mark, to break the violent squalls carrying 

 the salt spindrift which is so inimical to all vegetation. 



I did not know that there was little use in planting 

 Pinus Austriaca, mountain ash, service, or even birches, 

 in the middle of a wood, as, though they look nice for 

 some years, they eventually get smothered by the faster- 

 growing trees, and one has the trouble of cutting most of 

 them out. If I were beginning again I would commence, 

 as I have already said, with a row of the Tyrolese Pinus 

 montana above high- water mark, then put Pinus 

 Austriaca behind it, and for the third row I would plant 

 that admirable tree Pinus Laricio. This triple row of 



