Remarkable Nor'way Spruces at the Whim. 249 



Art. IV. An Account of some remarkable Trees of the Noriuay 

 Sprtice (A^bies excelsa Poir.), wore grotving at the Whim, in Peebles- 

 shire, the Property oj" Sir James Montgomery of Bartstanhope and 

 Stobo. Drawn up, at our request, by J. M'Nab, Superintendent 

 of the Experimental Gardens, Inverleith ; and, with our permis- 

 sion, read by him before the Botanical Society at Edinburgh, 

 Jan. 12. 1837. 



The estate of Whim was purchased by the Earl of Islay 

 afterwards Duke of Argyll, in the year 1730; and not long 

 after his death, in 1761, it was purchased by the late Lord Chief 

 Baron, Sir James Montgomery, who formed the garden in 1776. 

 He also improved and enlarged the former plantations of the 

 duke. The Whim is situated on the high grounds bordering 

 the Pentland range of hills, fourteen miles south-west of Edin- 

 burgh. The soil is chiefly composed of brown moss or bog earth, 

 which is deep and spongy; the subsoil is various, and is com- 

 posed, in the kitchen-garden and its vicinity, of a retentive 

 whitish clay. A large proportion of this property is planted 

 with the Norway spruce : a few black spruces, silver firs, and 

 larches, also exist, but only in solitary trees. Of hard-wooded 

 trees, the beech seems to be the most prevalent; and it thrives 

 uncommonly well in the spongy peat soil. It was planted in 

 belts surrounding the estate, by the Duke of Argyll, soon after 

 1730; the ground having been previously trenched. Nearly all 

 the fine old specimens of trees on this estate were cut down 

 about twenty-five years ago; but there are still some spruce firs, 

 between 65 ft. and 70 ft. high. The girt of the largest common 

 spruce on the estate is 5 ft. 10 in. at the surface of the ground ; 

 and that of the largest black spruce is 5 ft. 1 in. 



The Whim spruces present some very interesting and remai-k- 

 able forms, to all appearance caused by the spongy nature of the 

 peat soil in which they grow. Such forms, perhaps, are not 

 common in the country ; or, if they do exist, I am not aware of 

 any notice having been taken of them. Of the Whim spruces, 

 the form which appeared to me the most remarkable, was that 

 of a tree which was tillering, or assuming a stoloniferous aspect. 

 This was shown in several specimens, on different parts of the 

 property ; and, of those I observed, the most fantastic specimen 

 was one growing on a piece of elevated moss}' ground, about an 

 acre in extent, and within the boundary of the kitchen-garden 

 wall. The Lord Chief Baron, in forming the garden, left a bank 

 of peat standing, after the rest had been carted away and burned, 

 as a trophy to show the strongly marked contrast between the 

 improvements of human art, and nature in her wildest form. 

 This spot of ground is called the Wilderness; and on its highest 

 point a singular Norway spruce exists. Owing to its stoloniferous 

 growth, this tree has received the appellation of the Travelling 



