By Joseph Sabine, Esq. 



201 



grass, of unequal breadth, extends westward from the burn to 

 a carriage road, from which the pleasure ground is separated by 

 a wooden fence. Above, the bank is divided from the adjoin- 

 ing enclosure by a hedge on the top of a sunk fence, parallel 

 to the bank, at about sixty feet from its crown. The greatest 

 number of Hollies grow upon the bank, but several are in the 

 flat ground below. These last are mixed with Birches, Geans, 

 Ashes, and especially with Alders, some of which last within 

 the pleasure grounds, are of extraordinary size and height.* 

 The same kinds of trees are also occasionally mixed with the 

 Hollies on the bank. Few of the Hollies stand single ; several 

 appear to spring from the same root, as if they had shot up 

 from the stump after the original tree had been cut down, 

 and many grow very close together, forming jointly a grand 

 mass. The stumps of the former trees are in some instances 

 perceptible, and in others, the earth on the sloping parts of 

 the bank having fallen away from the roots, show the origin 

 of the present growth to have been the original stock. One 

 group, where the bank is rather flat, consists of fifty-five trees, 

 growing in a spot not quite one hundred and thirty-four feet 

 in circumference, and the girth of these, at six feet from the 

 ground, is from three feet six inches to eighteen inches. 

 There are altogether seventy-three groups of Holly-trees, 

 the trees forming which are in number 508, and of these 87 

 have trunks free from branches from eight to fourteen feet 



• These Alders are the finest of the kind I have ever seen. They have, when 

 viewed at a distance, very much the appearance of Oaks. The dimensions of 

 three of them, are as follows one, 71 feet high, and 9 feet 4 inches in girth ; 

 one, 611 feet high, and 7 feet 4 inches in girth ; one, 59 feet high, and 8 feet in 

 girth ; the girths being taken at from 5 to 6 feet from the ground. 

 VOL. vii. D d 



