382 HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



cut to pieces, for such a purpose, — a feeling which may be 

 pardoned in Scottish horticulturists. The woodmen live, 

 in small scattered cottages, sometimes having mud-walls, 

 and deserving only the name of huts. The forest is 

 traversed by narrow hunting roads; and, from the peep 

 into the interior occasionally afforded by these, we could 

 perceive that the surface is very unequal, sometimes 

 rising into hillocks, and sometimes sinking into deep glens. 

 Where the wood has recently been cut down, we remarked 

 that a certain proportion of oak and beech standards had 

 been left, to become large timber. Many of these reserved 

 trees are tall : but, being at first naturally drawn up, by 

 the closeness of the surrounding plants, and afterwards 

 pruned up, so as to induce them to throw out numerous 

 branches, which, we understand, are regularly lopped for 

 fagots ; the trunks have not swelled in proportion to 

 the height attained. In other parts of the forest, where 

 the wood has not lately been felled, it is evident that the 

 same plan of leaving a few standards had in former times 

 been acted upon ; for lofty trees, from 80 to 100 feet high, 

 are now and then to be seen towering among those of 

 more ordinary dimensions. These reserved trees of former 

 days, however, owing to the circumstances already pointed 

 out, are remarkable only for their height. Among the 

 thousands of tall beeches, not one patulajagus is to be 

 seen ; and the largest Soigne oak conveys no idea of the 

 grandeur of the specimens of that tree to be seen in many 

 an English park. The sides of the road resembled those 

 often met with in Scotland ; being in many places covered 

 with brambles, lady-ferns, and foxgloves or dead-mens- 

 belb (Digitalis purpurea); and large water-worn boulder,. 

 toiM - appearing here and there in the clayey banks. — In 

 Ofie place, however, we noticed the leaves of spotted lung* 

 <»it (Pulmonaria maculate): awl elsewhere, in a glade of 



