Descriptive Notice of Blair-Adam. 363 



how much may be made of a place of the most unfavourable promise, by 

 planting perseveringly, and with some attention to the nature and form of the 

 ground. Where it has been possible, without sacrificing utility, to introduce 

 touches of beauty, such favourable opportunities have not been neglected, but 

 have been rendered successfully available. I need not particularise instances, 

 but I may mention the Glen, and the Burn, and the Kiery Craigs, all of them 

 objects of little interest until rendered interesting by the beautiful manner in 

 which they have been wooded, as well as the fruit-garden, which, though 

 walled on three sides, has been converted into a most interesting spot, by the 

 manner in which it has been enclosed on the south side, and in a great 

 measure surrounded by a wilderness, in which is to be found intermixed a pro- 

 fusion of evergreen trees and shrubs of remarkable growth. Were it a matter 

 of prudence to make a large sacrifice of income to absolute taste, often in 

 itself unprofitable, I should say that Blair-Adam is now in that very state in 

 which a judicious landscape-gardener, with full powers and means allowed 

 him, might produce the happiest effects in the shortest period of years, and 

 with the least comparative labour, so as to introduce the appearance of perfect 

 nature into every part of it. 



" It is somewhat remarkable that it should have fallen to the lot of the 

 same individuals of the same family, I mean William and John Adam, the 

 grandfather and father of the Chief Commissioner, to create and alter another 

 place in the same way as they did Blair-Adam. This was the small property 

 of North-Merchiston, near Edinburgh. It consisted of a square field of 

 about thirty acres, which was surrounded by a wall and planted by the grand- 

 father with a circle in the centre, which had four regular avenues breaking off 

 from it in four different directions. One of these avenues terminated in a 

 straight row of trees running at right angles to it and flanking a broad walk 

 ending with a lirne tree on each side. The vista to this walk to the east was 

 the castle of Edinburgh, and the tower of St. Giles's Church, and the house 

 was placed at the western end of it. John Adam broke up his father's formal 

 lines here, as he did at Blair-Adam, and, from what I recollect of the place 

 when I visited it as a boy, the effects of his operations were very pleasing. 

 From the intimacy that subsisted between Mr. Adam and Shenstone, whom 

 he visited at the Leasowes, it seems to be doubtful whether the poet's form- 

 ation of that celebrated place was not materially assisted, if not suggested, by 

 the hints which he received from his Scottish friend. The place of North 

 Merchiston afterwards passed into other hands, and it has since been much 

 demolished by having its timber greatly diminished, and the Edinburgh and 

 Glasgow Canal carried directly through it, so as to subdivide it. But injured 

 as it has been, there yet remains enough of beautiful features about it, to en- 

 courage a proprietor of taste to give it such restoration as might yet convert 

 it into a very delightful villa ; and the rich*distant views which it commands 

 add much to the temptation to commence such an undertaking. 



" In considering the effects of the growth of plantation during a century as 

 exhibited at Blair-Adam, it must be remembered that a much shorter period 

 of active and judicious planting may produce changes the most satisfactory, 

 so as richly to reward the proprietor who may have so employed his time and 

 money, both by the pleasure and the profit he may reap during many years of 

 his own life. This, of course, will be more easily accomplished if ancient 

 trees or older woods have chanced to exist already, especially if they do so 

 amidst a variety of surface, and a favourable combination of natural features. 

 I could mention many places where the proprietors who made the plantations 

 on them still live in green vigour, to enjoy the daily improving effects of their 

 earlier operations. But the seat of a friend, which I have had occasion lately 

 to visit, is at this moment particularly in my mind, as a most pregnant ex- 

 ample of this. I mean Blairquhan in Ayrshire, the residence of Sir David 

 Hunter Blair, Bart. There the situation is peculiarly favourable from the 

 variety of form of the surrounding grounds and the shapes of the retiring 

 hills ; from the noble ancient trees that exist in the vicinity of the house, as 



