73 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



i\ feet. I made it in 1905 about 21 feet at the same height and 14 yards round the 

 roots. Wilkie computed that the main stem contained 557 cubic feet and the 

 branches 692 cubic feet, including bark, which exceeds the largest tree of the 

 species recorded in this country. I certainly have never seen anything surpassing 

 it in bulk, even in the virgin forests of Bosnia, though I have measured a fallen 

 silver fir there which was at least 200 feet high. Another of these trees figured on 

 plate 12 of the same volume, was estimated at 437 feet in the stem, and 449 feet 

 in the ten principal limbs. At the same place is a very fine tree which Mrs. Henry 

 Callender, who showed it to me, called "The Three Sisters," 115 feet high according 

 to Wilkie, I made it, twenty-four years later, 120 feet, with a bole only 8 feet long, 

 where it divides into three tall stems nearly equal in height and measuring just above 

 where they separate, 8 feet 4 inches, 8 feet 5^ inches, and 8 feet 7 inches respectively. 



The Union trees, 1 in the avenue at Auchendrane, Ayrshire, planted in 1707, 

 are six in number, the largest being, in 1902, 97 feet high and 16 feet 1 inch in 

 girth. Another tree in the flower garden here, planted at the same time, was 1 10 

 feet by 16 feet in 1902. 



In the island of Bute, James Kay describes, in Trans. Scot. Arb. Soc. ix. p. 75, 

 some fine silver firs which grew in a clump north-east of the circle walk in the woods 

 of Mountstuart, the seat of the Marquess of Bute. They were of immense height 

 (120 feet), and could be seen for miles standing out like an island among this forest of 

 sylvan beauty. There were nineteen silver firs, five spruce, one Scots pine, and two 

 birches, all standing on a space of 60 yards square, where they were healthy and not 

 overcrowded. They were very uniform in size, and ran from 10 to 12 feet in girth, 

 ten being straight to the top and nine forked at 30 feet to 60 feet up. 2 



In other parts of Scotland the silver fir usually attains smaller dimensions, the 

 largest that I have seen being on the banks of the Tay, near Dunkeld, and at 

 Dupplin Castle, where I measured a tree over 100 feet high by 17^ feet in girth. 

 But Mr. W. J. Bean, in Kew Bulletin, 1906, p. 266, mentions an immense tree, 

 which was blown down on November 17, 1893, near Drummond Castle, when 210 

 years old. The stump of this tree was 6 feet in diameter, and the cubic contents 

 are said to have been 1010 cubic feet. 



At Dawyck, near Peebles, in a cold situation at about 500 feet above the sea, 

 Mr. F. R. S. Balfour showed me some large silver firs which far surpass the larches 

 growing near them, which are believed to have been planted about 1730. The 

 largest of the firs is 1 1 2 feet by 1 5^ feet. 



In most parts of Ireland the silver fir is a thriving tree wherever planted, and seems 

 to be well suited to the climate. It was probably introduced early in the eighteenth 

 century, as, according to Hayes, there were trees 100 feet high and 12 feet in girth 

 in 1794 at Mount Usher, in Co. Wicklow. The largest silver fir in Ireland that we 

 know of is at Tullymore Park, Co. Down, the seat of the Earl of Roden, growing 

 in a sheltered valley below the house. Col. the Hon. R. Jocelyn, who showed me 



1 Cf. Renwick, in Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgcnu, vii. 265 (1905). 



* Mr. Kay informs me that many of the trees described by him thirty years ago have since been blown down, and I could 

 not identify these silver firs when I visited Bute recently. 



