72 CHRISTISON—OBSERVATIONS ON 
and °88 and ‘o2 in the decade 1888-97. This shows a consider- 
able falling off in the second period, although the trees seem as 
vigorous and healthy as ever. The Spanish Chestnut, with ‘94 
and ‘69, shows the same tendency, as do the Tulip tree, with ‘60 
and ‘48, and in a less degree the remarkably handsome Lime, 
nearly seven feet in girth, with *30 and ‘27. As to the flowering 
Ash, although its rate was ‘40 in the first decade, it almost 
ceased to increase in the second, while showing little degeneracy 
in its general aspect. 
Annual range-—This was slight in the Beech No. 8 and the 
Spanish Chestnut, at least in its first decade; moderate, the 
maximum being somewhat less than double the minimum, in 
Beech No. 7; large in the Tulip tree and flowering Ash ; and 
extreme in the Lime, ‘00 to ‘65. 
Maximum single year’s tncrease—Beech No. 7 attained 1°20 
in both decades, and No. 8 the same in the first decade and 1°10 
in the second; Spanish Chestnut reached 1I'1o in the first and 
100 in the second; Tulip tree 1:00 in the first and ‘80 in the 
second ; and Lime ‘65 in the first and *50 in the second. 
C. Comparison with Trees in the Neighbourhood of 
Edinburgh. 
The rates, particularly of the older trees in the Botanic 
Garden, by no means represent the capacity for increase in trees 
-of the same or even of greater size in the Edinburgh district, when 
more favourably situated as to soil. 
Even the handsome Beeches Nos. 7, 8, with a rate of °85 and 
‘92, when six and a half and seven and a half feet in girth respec- 
tively, were nearly equalled by a specimen twelve feet in girth, 
with a rate of ‘81 for eight years, at Craigiehall ; and the 
wonderful tree at Newbattle, nineteen feet in girth, shows what 
is possible at so great a size, by having increased at the annual 
rate of about half an inch for fifteen years. 
The largest British Oak in the Garden is much of a Wiel 
although only eight feet in girth, and has been increasing for 
twenty years at about the annual rate of only a quarter of an 
inch; but one at Craigiehall kept up a rate of nearly three- 
quarters of an inch for eight years, although at the considerably 
greater girth of ten and a half feet. 
A fine Turkey Oak in the Garden, four and a half feet in 
