Abies 



729 



in height, they measure from 14 feet to 16 feet in girth, the largest being estimated 

 by Mr. A. T. Gillanders, forester to the Duke of Northumberland, to contain about 

 600 cubic feet each. 



At Rydal Park, Cumberland, Mr. W. F. Rawnsley informs me that a silver fir 

 was felled which contained 420 cubic feet, and doubtless there are others in the 

 north-west of England as large. 1 



In Wales, however, I have seen none remarkable for size, though there are 

 many places which seem as suitable as those I have mentioned. 



In Scotland the silver fir attains its maximum of size in the south-west, and in 

 a district where the climate is most unlike that of central Europe ; being much 

 warmer in winter, cooler in summer, and with a rainfall of 60 to 80 inches and even 

 more in exceptional years. 



On the Duke of Argyll's property at Roseneath are the champion silver firs of 

 Great Britain, both as regards age and girth. Strutt figures them in Silva Scotica 

 (plate 6), and states that the largest was then about 90 feet by 17 feet 5 inches. 

 Loudon, twenty years later, gave the height as 124 feet, the age as 138 years, and 

 the diameter of the trunk as 6 feet ; but this height is almost certainly an error, as 

 when I visited Roseneath in September 1906, a careful measurement made the 

 largest about no feet by 22 feet 7 inches, and the other, which stands close by it, 

 105 feet by 22 feet 1 inch. 2 Plate 210, from a negative for which I have to thank 

 Mr. Renwick, is the best I have been able to obtain of these noble trees, which 

 grow close to sea-level in deep sandy soil. The Duke of Argyll believes them to 

 have been planted about 1620 or 1630. 



Near Inveraray Castle, on the lower slopes of Dun-y-Cuagh, Mr. D. Campbell, 

 the Duke's forester, showed me some splendid silver firs, over 120 feet high and 

 1 5 feet in girth, and assured me that in his younger days he had helped to measure 

 some which were much larger ; one he believed to have been 24 feet in girth, 

 containing over 800 feet of timber. On the Dalmally road, a little above the 

 stables at Inveraray, are the tallest trees of the species that I have seen in Scotland ; 

 one measures 135 feet, or perhaps as much as 140 feet, by 16^ feet ; another about 

 135 feet by 14 feet 3 inches ; and there may be even taller ones here which I could 

 not measure. These splendid trees were, as the Duke of Argyll informs me, 

 probably planted by Duke Archibald in 1750, but their timber is so coarse that it 

 is of little value, and is principally used by Glasgow shipbuilders for keel blocks. 



Some of the most remarkable silver firs which I have seen in any country are 

 at Ardkinglas, now the property of Sir Andrew Noble, near the head of Loch Fyne. 

 They are described by J. Wilkie, and well illustrated in the Trans. Scot. Arb. Soc. 

 ix. 174, and show a tendency, which I cannot explain, to throw out immense 

 branches, which, after growing horizontally 10 to 15 feet from the main trunk, turn 

 up and form an erect secondary stem. The largest of these (op. cit. plate 1 1), accord- 

 ing to Wilkie's careful measurement in 1881, was 114 feet high by 18 feet in girth at 



1 Sir Richard Graham of Netherby Hall, Cumberland, showed me a very remarkable tree in a wood called Hog 

 Knowe, which has large spreading branches, 80 paces in circumference, and measures 98 feet by 14J feet. Mr. Watt of 

 Carlisle has been good enough to send me a photograph of this tree, taken by his sister. 



J See Gard. Chron. xxii. 8, fig. 1 (1884), and xxvii. 166, fig. 39 (1887), where good illustrations of these trees are given. 

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