586 Recollections of a Gardening Tour. 



engine, which reminds us much more of Birmingham than of 

 any part of Scotland, except Glasgow. The low round towers, 

 often with the walls ragged at top, so as to give the idea of the 

 remains of high towers, built over the orifices of the old coal 

 pits, are also to us a new feature ; to which we must add, that the 

 direction of the road has been changed, in some places so much 

 so that we could not recognise Libberton Kirk (where we went 

 to school in 1796), and that plantations newly made when we 

 left the country are now grown up, furnishing by their thinnings 

 useful timber. We were much gratified with the prevalence of 

 the balsam poplar in the plantations at St. Catherine's near 

 Edinburgh, because that is the first tree that comes into leaf in 

 the spring in every part of the northern hemisphere, and nothing 

 can be more beautiful than the delicate gamboge yellow of its 

 foliage when it first expands. This tree does not attain so large 

 a size as the other poplars, nor does it produce much timber ; 

 but it is, as we think, by far the most ornamental species of the 

 genus. The largest trees we saw were at Valleyfield, where 

 they are as high as those which we have figured in the Arboretum 

 from Syon ; but, having been drawn up by other trees, they are 

 much less handsome in their shapes. We stopped at present 

 only one night in Edinburgh, and, after dining at an advertising 

 hotel in Princes Street, and being imposed on both by the 

 master and servants, we took an incognito stroll in the old town, 

 and visited some of the closes and wynds that were formerly 

 familiar to us. Nothing struck us more forcibly than the ap- 

 pearance of the Norloch, covered with trees that were not even 

 planted when we left Edinburgh. 



Aug. 6. — Edinburgh to Kinross. At North Queen's Ferry we 

 went to see a beautifully situated small place which once be- 

 longed to Captain Maconnochie, author of Australians now in 

 Australia, and where his amiable and accomplished lady dis- 

 played her taste and skill in the flower-garden. The outer gate 

 was open, and we passed through the whole place, including the 

 lawn, shrubbery, and kitchen-garden, without seeing a human 

 being. This, however, is not so rare an occurrence as one 

 unaccustomed to see a great many places might imagine. We 

 were much gratified with the situation of the house, entered from 

 behind, the views from the windows in front, and from the walks 

 in the beautifully varied grounds. The whole place, however, 

 was in a state of comparative neglect. There is a curious piece 

 of architecture in the little town of Inverkeithing, which we 

 should have been glad to have had a sketch of. Pass Fordell, 

 Sir Philip Durham's; the gate between two obelisks, each of one 

 stone; and the road within raked in the manner almost peculiar 

 to the Continent and to Scotland, and which has probably ori-. 

 ginated in the want of binding gravel. 



