152 REPORTS OF MEETINGS FOR 1910 



positions the Magnolia seemed quite at home, the following 

 varieties having all flowered during the season : — Magyiolia 

 acumhiata ; M. stellata ; M. anriculata var. Fraseri ; M. Thomp- 

 soniana ; M. Kohus ; M. parviflora ; M. tripetela ; and M. Watsoni. 

 A weathered Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga Douglasii), planted 

 about 1835, and measuring 10 feet 10 inches at 4 feet fi-om 

 the ground and approximately 69 feet in height (Plate VIII.), 

 overlooked the tennis lawn on the West, round which a double 

 border of evergreen and flowering shrubs led to the junction 

 of the formal and wild gardens. In a belt of wood bordering 

 the latter were noticed examples of the Sitka Spruce (Picea 

 Menziesia) gii-thing 9 feet 3 inches at 4 feet, and of the Spanish 

 Silver Fir (Abies Pinsapo), girthing 6 feet 1 inch at 4| feet. 

 Skilful landscape gardening has transformed a waste in front 

 of the sandstone quarries, from which stone for the mansion 

 and offices has been taken, into a sequestered dell whence a 

 path conducts beneath the overhanging cliffs to the rock-garden 

 contrived at their base. The novelty of the scheme impresses 

 one, but not more so than the utility, as within the shelter of 

 these natural walls not a few half-hardy shrubs withstand the 

 severity of a Northern winter. Chief among these are a Japanese 

 Cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) girthing 6 feet 7 inches, and 

 a remarkably regular Fitzroya pnfagonica, which having been 

 carefully tended has attained the unusual height in such a 

 Northerly climate of 29 feet, and girths. 2 feet 8 inches at 

 4 feet. At a further point in the rockery, to which has been 

 given the romantic name of " Khyber Pass," strong bushes of 

 C hoist/a ternata and Desfontainea spinosa were in flower, a 

 condition of things the more notewoi'thy by reason of their 

 altitude and distance from the sea. 



Emerging from the quarries through a mat-covered gate, 

 which was jocularly described as separating in spring the 

 Arctic regions from the Temperate zone, the party came in 

 view of a fragment of the residence, built in 1614 by Thomas 

 Middleton and Dorothy, his wife, consisting of a Renaissance 

 doorway, figured by Buck in 1728 as forming a porch to the 

 mansion, but believed to have belonged oi-iginally to a still 

 older building. At present it is included in the front wall of 

 a modern dwelling which adjoins the Castle and is faced with 



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