532 Domestic Notices : — Scotlmid. 



(Glnsgow C/iron.) This, we trust, will operate as a stimulus to the English 

 Agricultural Society, lately established. 



Ancient Oak Tree. — For many years it has been known that a large oak 

 was lying submerged in a marsh near the side of the river Esk, about one 

 mile north from Cortachy Castle, in the parish of Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, and 

 which, having been recently drained, has permitted the tree to be dug out. 

 Mr. Blackadder, having been requested to examine it, reports that it is not 

 entire, the root end of the trunk, apparently to the extent of one third of its 

 length, having been destroyed by fire, which had also penetrated up through 

 its heart to the forks, where the principal limbs branch off ; two of which 

 were found lying in the position as they had fallen, and were broken over at 

 that point. Some portions, which had been most deeply submerged, are in a 

 fresh state, particularly the greater part of the largest limb, which may be cut 

 up into planks. The trunk is the most decayed part, it having been a very 

 long period since it was partially uncovered by the digging away of the peat, 

 during which it has been exposed to the alternate action of the air and 

 moisture. The portion of the trunk yet remaining is 13 ft. in length, 

 and girts 25 ft. at its top end, and 18 ft. at the other, which, from 

 the direction of the fibres, appears to have been the smallest part of the 

 bole. The two limbs are each 20 ft, in length ; the one girths 6 ft., and 

 the other 9 ft., exhibiting in the whole, the skeleton of nearly 600 cubic 

 feet of timber. But, from the rotten state of the trunk, it is obvious that it 

 is now much reduced in its girts, and, as is the case with such trees, the but- 

 end, which is burned off girts always considerably more than any other part 

 of them ; therefore, taking that portion of the bole still remaining as not con- 

 taining more than two thirds of its original quantity of timber, and making 

 an allowance for the smaller limbs, proportioned to the average of sucii kind 

 of trees, which, although not now to be seen, have evidently existed to some 

 extent, and may have been wasted away, or perhaps destroyed by the fire, or 

 carried off at its original discovery, it is not improbable that it may have con- 

 tained, at one period, fully 1000 cubic feet of timber. Such a tree, like 

 some of the kind still existing in a growing state in England, may have 

 exceeded one thousand years old before it was burned down, and may have 

 been long previously rotten and hollow in the heart, near the ground, and have 

 occasionally afforded shelter to the hunter or wanderer, and at last been de- 

 stroyed by their fires kindled within it, as indicated by the charred portions 

 being up through its heart, and none on its exterior : but whether this, and 

 the other inferences, as to its original size be just or not, the visible remains 

 excite much interest; for, although there have been, and still are, various oaks 

 nmch larger in England, yet the remains of this show it to have been the 

 largest oak tree hitherto generally known to have grown in Scotland, and 

 afford an additional proof, to a few others, of the gigantic size which the 

 native oaks had formerly attained within the Grampian Glens ; in some of 

 the more eastern of which, as actually obtains in this particular glen, not a 

 shrub of them now exists naturally, in a growing state, the whole of the 

 existing species having been planted ; which fact rests upon the respectable 

 authority of its former owner, the venerable father of the present Earl of 

 Airlie. (Dundee Chronicle, Sept. 6. 1838.) 



[This tree appears far to exceed in dimensions any oak now growing in Scot- 

 land. The largest we have ever found any account of in that country being one 

 mentioned by Dr. Walker, which grew in Lochaber, and measured 24 ft. 6 in. 

 in circumference at 4ft. from the ground. (See Arb. Brit., vol iv. p. 1772.)] 



Farmers versus Books. — A pamphlet with this title, by .T. S. Monteith, 

 Esq., son of Sir Charles Stuart Monteith of Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire, has 

 just been published at Ayr. The object of the author is to show that rooks, 

 so far from being injurious to the farmer, by eating his newly sown corn, 

 render him the most essential service, by eating the grubs, which not only destroy 

 newly sown corn, but the roots of grass and growing plants of every de- 

 scription. Our only wonder is, that the farmers of Ayrshire should not b§ 



