Cadzoiv Castle. 341 



park on which it stands, but the whole of the surrounding coun- 

 try, which should appear to belong to it ; and this is only to be 

 effected by showing a command over the public roads. 



The management of the estate of the Duke of Hamilton ap- 

 pears to be admirably conducted by Mr. Brown, who has super- 

 intendents for the different departments, whom he sent with us ; 

 and with them we inspected the home farm, the improving farms, 

 and the park ; and the resident upholsterer, who has the charge 

 of the furniture, conducted us over the house. Unfortunately 

 we neither saw the forester nor the gardener, both being from 

 home. The garden scenery at Hamilton bears no sort of re- 

 lation to the palace, and is evidently a mere temporary affair. 

 The farming is admirable; and we were shown extensive tracts 

 raised in value from a few shillings per acre to as many pounds, 

 by the frequent-drain system, subsoil-ploughing, liming, and 

 manuring, chiefly with bones. The soil in this part of the 

 country, and through great part of the West of Scotland, 

 is admirably adapted for the frequent-drain system, being 

 retentive, and chiefly injured by the retention of the water that 

 falls on it, rather than from subterranean springs. The young 

 plantations we saw enough of to justify us in saying that they 

 are too thick, and not pruned on Mr. Cree's system. The 

 hedges are kept with the greatest care in the Berwickshire 

 manner, which, though good in respect to pruning, is objection- 

 able in the management of the soil by the process called tabling, 

 which consists in taking it away from the extremities of the 

 roots, where it supplies the fibrils with nourishment, and heap- 

 ing it up about the extremities of the plants, where it can do 

 little or no good. To convince a Berwickshire man, however, 

 that he is wrong either in farming or hedging, would require 

 little less than a miracle. 



Cadzow Castle, the ancient baronial residence of the family of 

 Hamilton, is situated on the top of a steep bank of the river 

 Evan, which joins the Clyde near one of the entrances to 

 Hamilton Palace, The old castle is approached through the 

 remains of a forest of oaks, having from their age mostly the 

 character of old decaying pollards. A few of them are very 

 large, and one was pointed out to ns with a trunk about 34 ft. 

 in circumference at 6 ft. from the ground, and having the 

 branches covering a space above 100 ft. in diameter. There 

 are some very large ashes, sycamores, and broad-leaved elms, 

 all evidently indigenous in this part of the country. The 

 greater part of the oaks were of Quercus pedunculata, which 

 renders it probable that many of them were planted, as Q. sessili- 

 flora is the prevailing species on the banks of the Clyde and the 

 Evan. In this park there is a herd of wild Scottish cattle, in 



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