202 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 272. 



The Corstorphine Sycamore. 



THE great tree, which is represented in our picture on 

 p. 205, is one of the most famous in Scotland, and 

 stands in the old Midlothian village of Corstorphine, near 

 Edinburgh. It is locally called the Corstorphine Sycamore 

 or Corstorphine Plane, but is neither a Plane nor, of course, 

 a true Sycamore. The name Sycamore, rightly belonging 

 to a Fig-tree (Ficus Sycamorus), is, as the readers of Gar- 

 den AND Forest have more than once been told, popularly 

 applied in this country to the Plane-tree, and in England to 

 the Sycamore Maple, because of a general resemblance which 

 the leaves of these trees bear to those of the true Sycamore. 

 As the Corstorphine tree is a Sycamore Maple (Acer Pseudo- 

 platanus), the fact that it is commonly called a Plane as 

 well as a Sycamore seems to show that, in Scotland, this 

 special matter of vernacular nomenclature is even more 

 confused than elsewhere. 



The tree is a remarkable one, not only because of its 

 great size and the tragic story connected with it, but for 

 horticultural reasons also. " Its chief characteristic," says 

 a local writer, " is the very remarkable color of its young 

 leaves in early spring, as they do not show the tender green- 

 yellow of other trees of this species, but a rich, glittering 

 yellow — a tint so striking to the eye as to attract by its 

 beauty and strangeness from a great distance." Indeed, 

 this yellow tint must persist with more or less brilliancy 

 throughout the summer, for in Loudon's Arboretum Britanni- 

 cum mention is made, under the heading Acer Pseudo pla- 

 tanus, of a variety called Flava variegata ; this variety is 

 described as "the yellow variegated Sycamore or Cors- 

 torphine Plane, with leaves variegated with yellow," and 

 we are told that "the original tree stands near an old 

 pigeon-house in the grounds of Sir Thomas Dick Louder, 

 Bart, in the parish of Corstorphine, near Edinburgh." Thus 

 we see that the Corstorphine tree has been produced in 

 English nurseries as a well-marked ornamental variety. 



As much of the history of the parent tree as is known 

 may be read in a book called A Midlothian Village, written 

 and illustrated by a local artist, Mr. G. Upton Selway, to 

 vi'hom we are also indebted for the photograph which is 

 here reproduced. From the year 1376 until the end of the 

 seventeenth century the lords of the manor in this locality 

 were the Forresters of Corstorphine. Of the castle of this 

 family, says Mr. Selway, not one stone now remains upon 

 another ; but a pen-and-ink drawing of its ruins, made in 

 the year 1777, shows that it was much larger than the 

 usual Scotch manor-hOuse of the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries. A map of the same date shows that the approach 

 to it from the east was through an avenue of trees, and the 

 Corstorphine Plane appears to be the sole survivor of this 

 avenue. It has sometimes been called the largest tree of 

 its kind in Scotland, but this, says our authority, is an ex- 

 aggeration of its size, which, nevertheless, is remarkable. 

 Near it, as Loudon tells in his Arboretum, stands an ancient 

 dove-cote. This, says Mr. Selway, " resembles other build- 

 ings of its class built in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 

 turies. It is a fine specimen of a circular dove-cote, with 

 entrance from the north, built to accommodate one thou- 

 sand birds, and is, considering its exposed situation, in 

 very good preservation. These buildings were formerly 

 considered of great value when much attention was be- 

 stowed on the housing and breeding of pigeons, they be- 

 ing held in high esteem as food when the raising of poultry 

 was attended with greater risk than it is now, owing to 

 the dangers of those uncertain times." 



The tragic story which adds interest to this tree is a well- 

 verified tale of comparatively recent date. James Baillie, 

 second Lord Forrester, having taken an active part against 

 the Commonwealth, his estate suffered at the hands of the 

 English troops, and Cromwell exacted from him a fine of 

 ;^2,500. His affairs thus became involved and his estates 

 heavily burdened ; he consoled himself by a career of drink 

 and profligacy. The sister of his wife, who had died from 

 the effects of neglect and abuse, hearing that Lord Forrester 



had spoken evil about her, demanded a meeting, which 

 took place on the night of August 26th, 1679, near the old 

 dove-cote. Exasperated by his drunken abuse, the woman 

 murdered Lord Forrester at the foot of the Sycamore. For 

 this crime, after many escapes and adventures, she was be- 

 headed in Edinburgh. The story also tells that Lord For- 

 rester was believed to have buried treasure at the foot of 

 the tree, and that his ghost kept guard over it. 



Treatment of Waste Lands in the Low Countries. — IL 



'T'HE great sandy formation which covers the largest half of 

 -^ the Netherlands passes out of Holland into Hanover, and 

 stretches entirely across Northern Germany into Russia, the me- 

 dium level of the whole district being only about fifty feet above 

 the sea, and nowhere rising above three hundred. It is geolog- 

 ically very ancient, and its surface is marked by foreign rocks, 

 which lie scattered over its surface, supposed to have been 

 transported thither by icebergs from Norway and Sweden, in 

 some previous geological epoch. This formation makes the 

 principal part of northern Europe one great sandy plain, with 

 very little landscape beauty, except that which arises from 

 great green stretches overhung with a vast and ever-changing 

 sky, which have served as an inspiration to a race of landscape 

 artists, who have rendered with Dutch fidelity the features of 

 their colintry. " Les accidents du pays," says L'Esquirol, 

 "sont dans le ciel," but these apparently meagre details have 

 been enough for Hobbema and Riiysdaet and Ciiyp to work 

 with, in producing their immortal canvases. Alternating 

 with this sandy district in Holland, as well as in Belgium, are 

 extensive heath and peat lands, which afford another example 

 of the way in which persistent industry can overcome obstacles 

 in husbandry. These peat-beds have been worked for five 

 hundred years, so that the deposits in many cases have been 

 entirely exhausted ; but, undismayed, the persistent Dutch 

 farmers drain the holes by pumping, and put them under cul- 

 tivation, the basis being clay, which is capable of being con- 

 verted into a good soil. It is not uncommon to find at the 

 bottom of these excavated basins the remains of old forests ; 

 but what other people would think of making farms in such 

 cellars as these and by such tedious processes ? They begin 

 by trenching the beds, in which the peat is only fit for use 

 after eight years, the deposit being often more than thirty feet 

 in thickness, and only capable of removal by very slow degrees. 

 This peat-cutting, however, is a great branch of industry in 

 Holland, for it is the only fuel the country produces, there 

 being no coal, and but a very limited supply of forest. The 

 growth of peat is here still in progress, and the same curious 

 phenomena are still to be observed that were noticed by Pliny 

 in the time of the Roman occupation. For example, fields 

 are still found floating upon the water, and rising and falling 

 with it. The Dutch maintain that the whole town of Dort, a 

 large and flourishing place, shifted its location during one of 

 the inundations. During another, a field, on which ten or 

 twelve cows were feeding, was drifted across the Dollart, a 

 broad sheet of water many miles in width, which forms the 

 boundary between Holland and Hanover, and fastened itself 

 on the opposite shore in a foreign country, without the loss of 

 an inhabitant. 



The theory which prevails in regard to these peat-beds is 

 that they have been formed by the growth and gradual destruc- 

 tion of aquatic plants, growing in shallow pools and lakes, 

 forming vegetation which originally floated on the surface of 

 the water and finally attached itself by its roots to the bottom, 

 extinguishing the sheet of water by transformation. But it is 

 in the heath lands of Holland that the greatest results have 

 been achieved by industrious and ingenious exploitation. As 

 late as 1842 they were considered nearly valueless, so that in 

 that year the state sold about 60,000 acres at sixteen or seven- 

 teen cents an acre. These lands, subjugated by a regular, 

 though varied system of cultivation, have been so successfully 

 handled, that twelve years after the original sale 20,000 out of 

 the 60,000 acres were resold for nearly two dollars an acre, 

 and since then some of them have brought as high a price as 

 ten or fifteen dollars an acre. 



The methods adopted with these waste lands are various. 

 One is sheep-feeding on such parts of the ground as admit it ; 

 another is to shave off the sod, pile it in heaps in the sun to 

 dry, burn it, and dress patches with the ashes or spread them 

 on the contiguous sandy lands. 



But the favorite method of reclaiming both heath and sands 

 is the planting of forests of Firs and Pines, which is done with the 

 extraordinary patience that characterizes this indomitable race. 



