21 6 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



There is a fine tree at Syon, which in 1905 was 93 feet high by 15 feet 

 4 inches in girth ; and at Broom House, Fulham, there is a tree 95 feet high. 



In the courtyard at Burleigh, near Stamford, the seat of the Marquess of Exeter, 

 there is a large and very beautiful tree, figured by Strutt, plate 37, which was in 1822 

 60 feet high by 10 feet in girth, with a spread of 61 feet diameter. When I saw it 

 in 1903 it was still in perfect health, and was about 80 feet by 12 feet 6 inches. It 

 had remarkably spiny fruit, and its trunk was covered with small twigs. 



At Trebartha Hall, near Launceston in Cornwall, Mr. Enys reports in 1904 

 a tree 15 feet 6 inches in girth, with an estimated height of 70 feet. 



In Scotland the horse-chestnut seems as much at home as in England, and 

 thrives in most places as far north as Gordon Castle, where there is a tree, measured 

 in 1 88 1 by Mr. Webster, 65 feet high by 13 feet 4 inches in girth, and 274 feet in 

 circumference of its branches. 



At Newton Don, Kelso, the seat of Mr. C. B. Balfour, there is a tree which 

 was in 1906, i^ii f^^t in girth with a spread of branches of 165 feet in circumference. 



In Perthshire there is a very beautiful tree, remarkable for its weeping habit, 

 in the park at Dunkeld, which measures 80 feet in height by 1 7 feet 6 inches in girth 

 (Plate 64). At Kilkerran, Ayrshire, Mr. J. Renwick has measured a fine tree 84 

 feet high by 14 feet in girth, with a bole 22 feet high. At Pollok, near Glasgow, 

 a tree measured, in 1904, 63 feet high by 13 feet 6 inches girth at 2^ feet from 

 the ground, with a bole of 5 feet, giving off four great stems. 



None of these are equal to a tree in a group of seven standing at the west 

 end of Moncreiffe House in Perthshire, which Hunter^ describes as the largest in 

 Scotland, and which then measured 19 feet in girth at five feet from the ground. At 

 ten feet it divides into three great limbs, one of which has become firmly rooted in 

 the ground, and extends so far from the trunk that the total spread of the tree is 

 90 feet in diameter. 



The remarkable hardiness of this tree is shown by the existence of one, 

 reported by Mr. Farquharson of Invercauld, as growing at an elevation of mo feet, 

 which was supposed to be 177 years old in 1864, when it was 8 feet 7 inches in 

 girth. ^ 



In Ireland the horse-chestnut attains a great size, the largest we know of 

 occurring at Woodstock in Co. Kilkenny, on an island in the River Nore. One tree 

 measured in 1904, 93 feet in height by 18 feet i inch in girth, and according 

 to the careful records which have been kept of the growth of the many fine trees on 

 this property, measured in 1825, 10 feet 2 inches in girth ; in 1846, 13 feet 2 inches ; 

 in 1 90 1, 17 feet 9 inches. Another about the same height, in a meadow near the 

 river, measured in 1825, 11 feet in girth; in 1834, 12 feet; in 1846, 12 feet 11 

 inches; in 1901, 14 feet 4 inches. 



1 Woods and Forests of Perthshire, 18S3. 2 Old and Remarkable Trees of Scotland, p. 1 1 5. 



