CHAP. II. 



BRITISH ISLANDS. 



Hamilton, close by the palace, being the only garden for the 

 sale of plants mentioned by Reid in his Scots Gardener, pub- 

 lished in 1683. Among the oaks of Hamilton Park, so famous 

 down to the end of the seventeenth century, there were trees, 

 Nasmyth informs us, which measured 27 feet round the trunk, 

 with wide expansive branches. (Agriculture of Clydesdale, p. 144-.) 



Panmure is the name of an ancient family in Angusshire, whose 

 chief seat is the spacious and hospitable mansion of Brechin 

 Castle, which, from the remotest period of its history, has always 

 been possessed by the Maules, formerly Earls of Panmure. 

 Panmure, another seat of this family, is near Dundee, and was 

 built about 1665. It is a venerable fabric, and is kept by the 

 proprietor, with all its furniture and pictures, in the same state 

 in which it descended from his ancestors. In Dr. Walker's 

 time, Panmure was famous for its laburnums, which were planted 

 towards the end of the seventeenth century, and had attained a 

 great size in 1780. Sang says that a considerable quantity of 

 the laburnums at Panmure and Brechin were cut down in 1809, 

 and sold by public sale at fully 105. 6d. a foot, chiefly to cabinet- 

 makers. 



New Posso, in Peeblesshire, was formerly called Dalwick, 

 Dawick, or Daick. It belonged, in very ancient times, to the 

 chiefs of a very considerable family of the name of Veitch ; but, 

 in 1715, it was in the possession of Sir James Nasmyth of Posso, 

 an eminent lawyer, who rebuilt the house and garden, and by 

 some ornamental planting added greatly to the beauty of the 

 place. Pennicuick mentions that, in an old orchard near the 

 house, the herons built their nests upon some pear trees, which 

 were large and old trees in 1715. Armstrong, in 1775, says 

 that New Posso, formerly called Dalwick, " from being a lonely 

 mansion in the bosom of a gloomy mountain, is now the extreme 

 reverse. The vast improvements made by its present possessor 

 have proved not only an ornament to Tweeddale, but a worthy 

 example for emulation in the gentlemen of the county. The 

 botanical and culinary gardens are justly esteemed the most 

 copious in it ; and the pleasurable attention with which they are 

 cultivated, is sufficiently expressed on the front of the green- 

 house, alluding to its flowers, * Solomon in all his glory was 

 not arrayed like one of these/ " (Armstrong.} 



" The name of New Posso," Dr. Pennicuick tells us, " was 

 given to the place by Sir James Nasmyth, grandson of the first 

 possessor of that name, who was sheriff-depute in 1627. The 

 late Sir James Nasmyth of Posso has extended and finished 

 the place, and numerous plantations, with as much taste and 

 elegance as the Dutch mode of gardening by line and rule will 

 admit of. He likewise kept it in high order, and by the su- 

 periority of his own external appearance, politeness, knowledge 



