Domestic Notices : — Scotland. 663 



in no age or country' were the higher classes ever reformed by religion. 

 People who are exceedingly well off in this world seldom care much 

 about the next, nor is it our business whether they do or not. It is, 

 however, a part of our duty to suggest every thing which we think cal- 

 culated to promote the general improvement of our country, and of our 

 fellow-creatures every where ; and we cannot help directing attention to 

 the charities for education, and to the superfluous wealth of the church. 

 — Cond. 



Loudon's Howe and Loudoji's Brae. — Two gentlemen in Perthshire, 

 who received some of our Scotch pine seed from Hagenau, have sown it in 

 exposed hilly situations, where the plants are to remain, without removal, till 

 they become timber ; and one gentleman has named the site of the future 

 pine grove Loiidon^s Howe, and the other Loudon^ s Brae. We are by no 

 means insensible to this description of honour, because we associate the idea 

 with the durability of the earth itself. We despise a monument that can 

 be removed by a change of property, or destroyed by the revolution of a 

 government. Here are a valley and a hill dedicated to our memory, which 

 will be recorded in the maps of the country, and exist, bearing our name in 

 these maps and in this Magazine, during the remainder of the interval 

 between the past and the next geological change of our island's surface. We 

 feel this to be an ample gratification for the act of procuring and bringing 

 home the seeds — in itself a pleasure. — Cond. 



Hot-house in Islay. — In Islay House garden. Island of Islay, Mr. Gray 

 erected, last year, a splendid hot-house, on a new principle, which promises 

 to admiration. A single cluster of citrons, produced in it, consisted of four 

 fruit, averaging each 19 in., making a total of 6 ft. 4. in. {Scotsman, May 2. 

 1829.) 



Gardening in the Shetland Islands. — Crossing Brassa Sound, a distance 

 of near a mile, we landed on Brassa Island, a place of considerable size, 

 partly marsh, covered with peat moss, and partly hilly. It contains the 

 mansion-house of the proprietor, William Morrat, Esq., standing close to 

 the water, and surrounded by arable land, producing oats, bere, potatoes, 

 and clover, the finest in Shetland. This gentleman has an extensive garden, 

 maintained at considerable expense, producing cabbages, greens, turnips, 

 carrots, parsneps, artichokes, and other hardy vegetables, with a few straw- 

 berries and peas; the peas seldom fill, from the sea breezes and the severity 

 of the climate. It is enclosed by a high stone wall, against which a few 

 scraggy apple trees are shown as a curiosity. The Siberian crab appears 

 to thrive tolerably well ; and the gooseberry bush, trained against the 

 wall, produces leaves and branches in luxuriance: a few fruit of good size, 

 ripening during the month of September, are all that repay the labour and 

 expense. Amongst the flowers, which consisted of wild ones introduced 

 from the sea coast, the most showy were the Seathrift (iS'tatice Armeria), 

 Persicaria, Sea-catchfly (Silene maritima), Ragged Robin Campion (Lychnis 

 flos ciiculi), Red Campion (Lychnis diolca) the flowers of which were par- 

 ticularly beautiful, Tormentilla officinalis, Antirrhinum, 7'nula, Common 

 Yarrow ( Jchillea iliillefolium) with reddish-coloured flowers, &c. In front 

 of the house, surrounded by a very high stone wall, which protects the 

 vegetable world within from the sea breezes, is a square parterre, con- 

 taining plants in full flower, partly from the hot-house, and partly from 

 seed. Concealed from the bleak country and the surrounding ocean, it 

 appears like fairy land, and is the finest thing of the kind that I have seen 

 in Orkney or Shetland. Its smoothly cut grass-plots, traversed by gravel 

 walks, resemble a bowling-green. Near the mansion is a hot- house, in 

 which, bj' means of constant fires, the vegetable world prospers as well as 

 it would do in any other countr}'. What will give a very good idea of the 

 state of gardening in Shetland is, that Mr. Morrat, every few years, gets a 

 young gardener from the soutli country, who, though he enjoys a good 



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