6'1'4' General Resiills of a Gardening Tour: — 



natural beauty (of which there are thousauds to be found in the hilly dis- 

 tricts of Scotland), would produce results which all the art of man could 

 never effect in England. This opinion may perhaps be attributed to national 

 prejudice on our part; yet we cannot help thinking that when a raih'oad, 

 like that between Manchester and Liverpool, shall bisect the island from 

 Dover to John o' Groat's house, Scotland will be the land of country 

 residences, and the flat counties of England will be left lo farmers and 

 graziers. Whoever builds or plants in Scotland has generally the gratifi- 

 cation of knowing that he is cultivating and appropriating to the use of 

 man what would otherwise be of little value, from its not being adapted to 

 agricultural purposes. For our own part, we should feel far more pleasure 

 in creating a country seat, if only a cottage residence, out of bogs and 

 barren rocks, than in the easy task of destroying rich meadows and corn 

 lands, by covering them with palaces and plantations. 



The Soil in the west of Scotland is not in general, in its native state, fer- 

 tile; and in many places it is, or was, covered with heath or peat, or ren- 

 dered unfit for tillage by a retentive subsoil ; but it is every where capable 

 of the greatest improvements, either by draining, or irrigation, or by shel- 

 tering it with plantationso 



The Clhimfe, on which the agriculture of a country depends much more 

 than on the soil, is temperate, and moderately moist ; and, consequently, 

 seconds the efforts of man in the production of grass, forest trees, and root 

 and herbage crops : for corn and fruits it is not so favourable. 



The native Trees of this tract are the oak, the ash, and the others com- 

 mon to Scotland. The sycamore (yi^cer), the ash, and the mountain ash 

 have in some places acquired very great bulk, especially in the north of 

 Carrick, the southern division of Ayrshire. The two former trees seem to 

 have been the only ones employed as dool trees * in the days of heritable 

 jurisdiction; and the largest specimens in the county, as at Blairquhan 

 and Cassilis, are individuals known to have been used for the above pur- 

 pose. The largest mountain ash trees are on the estate of Barganny ; one by 



* For the sake of such of our readers as know little of the history of 

 Scotland, we may state that, in former times, the heads of clans had a 

 power of life and death over their vassals; and tried all actions, criminal as 

 well as civil, that took place within their territories. Death, in the lowlands, 

 was carried into execution by hanging the delinquent on a tree destined for 

 the .purpose, which generally grew close to the baronial residence, and was 

 called the dool tree. In the highlands, where trees were less common, a 

 deep pit or vs^ell was often used for the same purpose ; the individual to be 

 hanged going down a ladder into the well, and fixing the rope raund his 

 neck himself; the ladder being withdrawn, he was then pulled half way up 

 by the executioner, and left suspended. These times appear to us horrible; 

 but, considering the then state of civilisation, we question if more suffering, 

 relatively to their capacity for enjoyment, v/as then endured by the people, 

 than is now suffered by the comparatively refined natives of Great Britain, 

 and especially in England, from the prejudices, ignorance, and tyranny of in- 

 dividuals who sometimes find their way into the local or unpaid magistracy. 

 The abuse of the poor-laws, and consequent distress of the labouring classes, 

 may be clearly traced to this source. But these and other evils are gra- 

 dually passing away. Posterity will look on the hereditary judges of the 

 dark ages, and the rural justices and hereditary legislators of the present 

 time, as necessary steps in the progress of society from barbarism to that 

 high and equal civilisation which will be ultimately produced by high, equal, 

 and universal education. By many, this prospective view of society will be 

 thought chimerical ; but, by turning to the Quarterlij Journal of Education 

 (vol. ii. p. 251 — 259. 8vo, 1831.), it will be seen that it already', in a great 

 measure, exists ; and has done so for a century, in the state of New Eng- 

 land, in North America. 



