THE PINE TREE. 169 
knotty, bushy, and blemished. They stood at great distances, 
commonly from 50 to 100 yards apart, and evidently had not 
been considered of consequence when the intermediate ones 
had been felled. In other parts they were in patches, on the 
border of the lake, and on hill-sides; in both situations they 
grow rugged in figure, and of great girth. 
Notwithstanding the openness of this situation, and the 
fertility of the soil, it seemed not congenial to the natural 
reproduction of pine timber; partly from the ground being 
depastured, but principally from the exuviz of the old wood, 
for in the interior of the forest a young plant was rarely met 
with. On examining this place, a flat of ground at a turn of 
a small rivulet was pointed out as the spot where the largest 
trees grew, one of which was called “The Lady of the Glen,” 
the largest in the forest. It was cut up, and a deal from its 
centre presented to his Grace the Duke of Gordon by Mr. 
Osbourne. I have seen it in the entrance hall of Gordon 
Castle; it is 6 feet 2 inches long, and 5 feet 5 inches broad. 
The annual layers of wood, from its centre to each side, 
number about 235, indicating that number of years. A brass 
plate attached to the plank bears the following inscription :— 
“In the year 1783, 
WILLIAM OSBOURNE, Esquire, 
Merchant of Hull, purchased of the Duke of Gordon the 
forest of Glenmore, the whole of which he cut down in the 
space of twenty-two years, and built during that time, at the 
mouth of the river Spey, where never vessel was built before, 
forty-seven sail of ships, of upwards of 19,000 tons burthen. 
The largest of them 1050 tons, and three others little inferior 
jn size, are now in the service of His Majesty and the Honour- 
able East India Company. This undertaking was completed 
at the expense (of labour only) of above £70,000. To his 
Grace the Duke of Gordon this plank is offered as a specimen 
of the growth of one of the trees in the above forest, by his 
Grace’s most obedient servant, WILLIAM OSBOURNE. 
“Hon, September 26, 1806.” 
I saw many blocks of extraordinary size near the spot 
where this tree grew. The surface soil is composed of thin 
