38 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF ABERDEEN AND DISTRICT 
murchus and Abernethy. Except on the west, the forest is sheltered on 
all sides by lofty mountains. The trees, as the history of the forest 
shows, have always been of fine growth, and the timber line extends 
up the mountain sides from 1,100 ft. to 1,400 ft. In the statistical 
account of Scotland it is recorded that the Duke of Gordon sold his 
fir woods at Glenmore in the Barony of Kincardine for £10,000 sterling 
to an English company. ‘The activities and busy scenes associated with 
the felling and floating of the timber down the Spey, and the ship- 
building at Speymount which sprang into existence, are vividly described 
by the older writers. ‘The inscription on a memorial plank cut from a 
tree of the forest at that time and which still stands in the entrance hall 
of Gordon Castle, gives clearly an idea of the magnitude of the 
enterprise. 
The inscription is as follows: ‘In the year 1783, William Osborne, 
Esqr., Merchant of Hull, purchased from the Duke of Gordon, the 
Forest of Glenmore, the whole of which he cut down in the space of 
22 year, and built during that time, where never vessel was built before, 
47 sail of ships of upwards of 19,000 tons burthen. The largest of them 
of 1000 tons and three others but little inferior in size, one now in the 
service of His Majesty and the Honble. East India Company. This 
undertaking was completed at the expense (for labour only) of about 
£70,000. ‘To His Grace, the Duke of Gordon, this plank is offered as a 
specimen of the growth of one of the trees in the above forest, by His 
Grace’s most obt. servt., W. Osborne, Hull, Sept. 26th, 1806.’ 
Various accounts show that the forest began to regenerate itself naturally 
after the trees had been cut down, and in 1914 a new crop of a fine type 
of Scots pine of the best quality had matured. A crop of inestimable 
value to the country at that time. 
There are extensive forests in the glens and valleys of the river Spey 
and its confluents. Scots pine and larch are of specially good growth 
and form in this part of Scotland. Natural regeneration is the out- 
standing feature in forestry management in Strathspey. Enclosure at 
the right time and the cessation of grazing is followed by an abundant 
appearance of natural seedlings among the heather. The Seafield, 
Rothiemurchus, Orton and other estates are famed for the magnificence 
of the Scots pine, which grows and flourishes in extensive forests, in 
this its apparent optimum locality. Altyre, Darnaway and Gordon Castle 
are noted for the excellence of,the Scots pine and other timbers produced 
in their well-managed woods. 
The county of Ross presents a great variety of surface ; mountain, 
glen, river, loch and moor make up a general landscape of exceeding 
charm and grandeur. Many tracts of fine arable land and pasture occur 
throughout the county. With one or two exceptions no large continuous 
wooded areas exist, but numerous small woods, shelter belts and clumps 
of trees abound, near and around mansion houses and farm steadings. 
Hardwoods and Conifers of many kinds thrive well. The peninsula of 
the Black Isle, bounded by the Moray, the Beauly and the Cromarty 
Firths, presented at one time, we are told, a bleak and dreary landscape, 
heath-covered and so lacking in pasture that it was said a goat could 
