SCOTTISH GAKDENS 



Outwardly there is nothing in the aspect of the 

 Hirsel to revive memories of the old riding days 

 any more than its present owner, twelfth Earl and 

 seventeenth Lord of Home, could be supposed 

 capable of restoring "Jethart justice," the practice 

 instituted by his ancestor in 1606, when a number 

 of freebooters were first hanged, and then put upon 

 their trial. The mansion is just a country gentle- 

 man's roomy residence, built on the banks of the 

 troutful little Leet, and comfortably screened with 

 ample woodland. To view it at its fairest you 

 should go there when May is melting into June, 

 when the trees have just donned their summer 

 finery, and golden broom and fragrant hawthorn 

 turn every country lane into a chemin de Paradis. 



There is great wealth of rhododendrons in the 

 Hirsel woods, not only the common far too common 

 ponticum, but the finer hybrid varieties, which are 

 not crowded together in clumps, as one too often 

 sees them arranged, but planted in large measure 

 and with liberal space in the glades of old Scots 

 pine and birch. It is in chequered sunshine and 

 shade that these princely shrubs attain their highest 

 development. Planted in the open, the blossoms get 

 seared by summer heat ; but in thin woodland they 

 display and retain the purest hues. 



Eighty years ago London took note of a fine tulip 

 tree growing in the Hirsel garden, reputed at that time 

 to be one hundred years old, and measuring twenty 

 feet in girth at three feet above ground level. The tree 



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