GARDENING IN THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS. 



49 



My brother, the late Sir Kenneth Mackenzie of Gairloch, gave me 

 100 plants of the right breed from his old native fir wood of Glasleitir, 

 on the shores of Loch Maree, which, like the rest of that good old stock 

 at Coulan, in Glen Torridon, or in those grand glens of Locheil, are as 

 different in growth and constitution from what are, alas ! too often sold 

 nowadays as Scotch firs as Scotch kale is from cauliflower. I have seen 

 the seedlings side by side in the seed-beds in my brother's Gairloch 

 nursery, and in the months of March and April the seedlings from the 

 bought seed were of a rusty red, as if scorched by fire, whereas the 

 home-bred ones were of a glossy dark green. 



For four or five years my poor peninsula looked miserable, and all 

 who had prophesied evil of it (and they were many) said, "I told you 

 so." But at last from the drawing-room windows we could see some 

 bright green specks appearing above the heather. These were the 

 Austrians and the few home-bred Scotch firs which had been dotted 

 about in the places of honour near the house ; and about the fifth or 

 sixth year everything began to shoot ahead ; even the little hardwood 

 trees, which up till then had grown, or rather died, downwards, started 

 upwards, many of them fresh from the root. Now came the real pleasure 

 of watching the fruit of all our labour and anxiety. 



The young trees had fewer enemies then than they would have 

 nowadays. Grouse strutted about among them, wondering what their 

 moor was coming to, but did no harm. Black-game highly approved 

 of the improvements, and by carefully picking all the leading buds out 

 of the little Scotch firs did their level best to make them like the 

 bushy Pinns montana. Brown hares and blue hares cut over a few of 

 the fat young shoots of the Austrian pines and oaks ; but, on the 

 whole, my young trees fared well in comparison with the way young 

 plantations here would fare now from the rabbit plague, and the roe 

 and the red deer ! 



I planted very few of the rarer trees to begin with. Wellingtonias 

 were then the rage, and I felt bound to invest in four of them, and 

 planted them in the best sites I could find near the house. I tried to 

 make pits for them ; I took out the little peat there was, but how well I 

 remember the clicks the spades gave when we came to the bed rock ; and 

 next morning (the night having been wet) all we had produced were 

 four small ponds, and I had to get an old man to bring me on his back 

 creels of rather better soil for them from a distance. I have just 

 measured my Wellingtonias, and in the forty-three years they have been 

 planted they have made some sixty- six feet of growth, and are about 

 eight feet in circumference six feet from the ground, and their strong 

 leaders show they are still going ahead. So much for the old man and 

 his creels of soil ! . 



Silver firs in the hollows have done well, and some of thorn are 

 sixty to seventy feet high also. One thing has surprised me very 

 much — viz., that oaks, of which I planted but few (thinking it was the 

 very last place where oaks would do), are very nearly level with the firs, 

 larches, and beeches. 



It was only after the plantation on the peninsula had been growing 

 fifteen or twenty years, and was making good shelter, that I began 



VOL. XXXIV. E 



