88 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES. PART I. 



days, at Collington, near Edinburgh, was ardently attached to 

 the study of organised nature from his youth ; and, as he men- 

 tions in a letter to Lord Kaims, published in Tytler's life of 

 that eminent man, more particularly to plants. Wherever 

 Dr. Walker went, he seems to have paid peculiar attention to 

 trees and plantations ; and there are few works which contain 

 sounder information on the subject than his Economical History 

 of the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland, published in 1812, 

 nine years after the author's death, which happened in 1803. 

 The facts, as to trees, given in this history, were collected, 

 Dr. Walker informs us, between the years 1760 and 1786; 

 and, as will appear from the following extracts, they are of very 

 great interest. 



" The first trees planted by art in Scotland," says Dr. Walker, 

 " were those of foreign growth, and especially the fruit-bearing 

 trees. Long before the Reformation, various orchard fruits, 

 brought probably from France, were cultivated in the gardens 

 of the religious houses in Scotland. Some of these fruit trees, 

 planted, perhaps, but a little before the Reformation, still remain. 

 A few exotic barren trees were likewise propagated, such as the 

 elder and the sycamore, and, at a later date, the beech and the 

 chestnut ; but none of our native trees were planted, such as the 

 fir [pine], oak, ash, elm, and birch, till about the beginning of 

 the last century. The first exotic tree of the barren kind 

 planted in Scotland seems to have been the elder. Though a 

 slow-growing and long-lived tree, many generations of it have 

 succeeded each other in that country. Elder trees of a large 

 size and very ancient date still appear ; not only about old 

 castles, but about the most considerable and oldest farm-houses. 

 It was very generally planted, and for a very useful and peculiar 

 purpose, the wood of the elder being accounted, in old times, 

 preferable to every other sort for the making of arrows. The 

 plane [sycamore, A^cer Pseudo-Platan us], in point of antiquity, 

 appears to be the next. When it was first introduced is uncer- 

 tain ; but it seems not only to have been planted, but to have 

 been propagated by seeds and suckers, for several generations 

 before any other forest tree was introduced into Scotland. The 

 wood of this tree, in old times, must have been of great value in 

 the hands of the turner ; and for that purpose chiefly it seems 

 to have been cultivated. It is better adapted for the wooden 

 bowls, dishes, platters, and other domestic utensils which were 

 universally in use, than the wood of any native tree in the 

 country. These, however, the elder and the sycamore, appear 

 to have been the only two barren trees planted in Scotland, till 

 towards the middle of the seventeenth century." 



Perhaps the oldest sycamore in Scotland, and which appears 

 to be at the same time the largest tree of the kind in Britain, is 



