34 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF ABERDEEN AND DISTRICT 
ecclesiastical buildings, now, alas, in ruins, for the monks of old had a 
keen eye for fertile lands as well as for rural beauty. At Elgin, Pluscarden, 
Spynie Palace, Kinloss Abbey or elsewhere Chelidonium majus, Hyocyamus 
niger, Atropa Belladonna, Marrubium vulgare and Ballota nigra survive as 
reminders of the monks’ healing art and as relics of their herbal gardens. 
VI. 
FORESTRY 
BY 
Pror. A. W. BORTHWICK, O.B.E., D.Sc., F.R.S.E. 
Forestry in the North and North-east of Scotland covers a wide and 
diversified area. The geological conditions, mountains, lochs and 
rivers, have given rise to very varied types of soil which change, mingle 
and separate over comparatively small areas. ‘The three northern 
counties stretch from sea to sea, and indeed, leaving out county boundaries, 
so does the whole area under consideration. It therefore embraces 
climatic conditions typical of the east and west coasts. Exposure, 
elevation, climate and soil may therefore be expected each to play its 
part in the development and types of forest to be found in this region. 
From historical accounts and the existing scattered remains of the original 
forest, as well as of the roots and trunks of trees, especially the Scots 
pine, in peat mosses, it is suggested that the Sylva Caledoniz at some 
time extended from the Moor of Rannoch in the west on the confines of 
the shires of Perth, Argyll and Inverness, eastward to the remaining 
woods of Mar at the sources of the Dee and the Don, in West Aberdeen- 
shire, and thence down the ridge on the northern part of the county of 
Mearns, which forms the southern boundary of the river Dee. Farther _ 
to the north, the remains of the primeval pine forest in the peat indicate 
that it extended much nearer to the sea, covering the low lands of 
Aberdeen and Moray. Along the shores of the Moray Firth no remains 
exist at the present day above ground on the slopes of the mountains 
facing the sea ; but in the massive Cairngorm mountains extensive remains 
are found in the glens and valleys of the river Spey and its tributaries. 
Other accounts say that all the territory north of the Forth and Clyde 
was covered by a vast forest, the forest of the Caledonii. The name 
‘Caledonii’ means ‘the people of the coverts,’ and applied to the 
inhabitants of the forest rather than to the territory which it occupied. 
In later days the term was applied in a general way to the whole of 
Scotland. The native forest was not entirely composed of pine, but 
contained an admixture of oak, birch, willow, alder, hazel and others. 
