362 Descriptive Notice of Blair- Adam. 



published, by my venerable and highly respected friend, the late Right Honour- 

 able William Adam, Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court in Scotland. 

 The origin of this work is thus graphically recorded in its own pages : — ' It 

 was on a fine Sunday, lying on the grassy summit of Bennarty, above its 

 craggy brow, that Sir Walter Scott said, looking first at the flat expanse of 

 Kinross-shire (on the south side of the Ochils), and then at the space which 

 Blair-Adam fills between the hill of Drumglow (the highest of the Cleish 

 Hills), and the valley of Lochore, " What an extraordinary thing it is, that 

 here to the north so little appears to have been done, where there are so many 

 proprietors to work upon it, and to the south, here is a district of country 

 entirely made by the efforts of one family in three generations, and one of 

 them amongst us in the full enjoyment of what has been done by his two 

 predecessors and himself ; Blair-Adam, as I have always heard, had a wild, 

 uncomely, and unhospitable appearance before its improvements were begun. 

 It would be most curious to record in writing its original state, and trace its 

 gradual progress to its present condition." The idea thus suggested by 

 Sir Walter Scott so pleased the Chief Commissioner, that he resolved to carry 

 it into effect, and thus was the Blair-Adam Book produced. 



" Before the year 1733, the property of Blair-Adam, lying in an extremely 

 dull and unpromising country, which might be said to be entirely destitute of 

 wood, had but one solitary ash tree upon it. The author of the book divides 

 the history of the progress of its improvement from this truly hopeless state 

 into three distinct eras, viz: — that from 1733, when his grandfather William 

 Adam began his operations, to 1748, when he died — the second era, that from 

 1748, when his father John Adam, succeeded, to 1792, when he died — and 

 the third, from 1792, when the late Lord Chief Commissioner succeeded, to 

 the date of writing the book in 1834. To explain more perfectly the extent 

 of beneficial change produced on the property during these different eras, the 

 work is illustrated with four plans. 



" The first of these plans shows the state of the property before 1733, with 

 that single tree upon it, in which it had then so much reason to rejoice. 



" The second exhibits the state of the property, as left by the grandfather, 

 in 1748. 



" The third represents it, as left by the father, in 1792. 



" And the fourth gives the whole improvements on the estate as executed 

 up to 1834, and consequently it furnishes a valuable example of what may be 

 accomplished in the course of a century. There being now about 900 acres 

 of wood, great part of which is well-grown timber, yielding, without any sa- 

 crifice of beauty, a very considerable revenue. 



" Mr. William Adam, the grandfather, adopted that formal style of planting 

 which prevailed in his time, so that the second plan, which shows the state of 

 the property at his death, is covered with straight hedgerows, bisecting each 

 other at right angles ; long avenues regularly lined off, each mathematically to 

 correspond with the other ; and in certain places circles, some of solid plant- 

 ation surrounded by lawn, and others of open lawn surrounded by a circle 

 of trees. A reference to the third plan, that of 1792, shows that John Adam, 

 the father, had not only very much increased the plantations, but that he had 

 succeeded in destroying the formality of the place as left by his father, as well 

 as in giving to it a considerable degree of intricacy and interest. But the 

 fourth plan, that of 1834, proves that the Lord Chief Commissioner added 

 both to the extent of the timber on the estate and to the beauty of the place, 

 in a still greater degree. 



" In thus so particularly noticing Blair-Adam, I by no means desire to bring 

 it forward as a perfect specimen of landscape-gardening. Its late venerable 

 and highly gifted owner himself considered it in no other light than as a terre 

 ornee, where agriculture and the necessary evils of its accompanying fences, 

 were objects of too great importance to be sacrificed, and which consequently 

 fettered the hands of taste, though even these were executed with unusual 

 care and judgment. My reason for selecting Blair-Adam is rather to show 



