76 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



second, their esthetic value, as trees and shrubs of healthy growth, 

 graceful habit, and attractive appearance, suitable for adorning 

 the landscape and other purposes of embelhshment. Keeping 

 these points before us, our subject naturally divides itself into 

 two sections — (1) Conifers as Forest Trees, and (2) Conifers as 

 Ornamental Trees and Shrubs. 



I. — CONIFEES AS FOEEST TeEES. 



When beginning life as a gardener, in the middle of the 

 fifties," my lot was cast in Perthshire, the Goxmij i^ar excellence 

 in Scotland at that period famed for the formation of collections 

 of Conifers in Pineta, and where the new Conifers were being 

 freely planted in the policies and woodlands on many an estate 

 throughout the district. The excellent work and foresight of 

 those days is now seen in the numerous collections of well-grown 

 Conifers which so thickly stud the wide straths and well-wooded 

 glens and hill-sides of that extensive county. Among the earliest 

 planters in the county of the new Conifers may be mentioned 

 the Earl of Mansfield, at Scone ; Sir William Stewart, Bart., at 

 Murthly ; Sir Eobert Menzies, Bart., at Castle Menzies ; Sir 

 William Stirling, Bart., at Keir ; Lord Justice Patton, at The 

 Cairnies ; the Duke of Athole, at Dunkeld ; the Earl of Kinnoull, 

 at Dupplin ; the Marquis of Breadalbane, at Taymouth ; Lord 

 Kinnaird, at Rossie Priory ; Sir William Keith Murray, Bart., at 

 Ochtertyne ; and many other owners of estates in the district, 

 who planted on their demesnes more or less of all the new 

 Conifers then supposed to be hardy in this country. Li all in- 

 stances where the Conifers were planted with care, and in suitable 

 soil, the hardy species have generally thriven with a vigour which 

 can scarcely be surpassed in their native countries, and some of 

 them, especially certain species from the North-west of America, 

 have quite outstripped, in height and girth of stem, the Larch, 

 Scots Fir, and Norway Spruce, growing alongside and planted at 

 the same time. 



Coming to England in 1856, the Conifer rage," as it was 

 popularly characterised, was then approaching its height. The 

 Wellingtoiiia, the " Mammoth Tree " of California, which had 

 been lately introduced, was being distributed over the length and 

 breadth of the land, and connoisseurs in Conifers pointed out 



