■ t 37 ] 
this fo very general a pradlice hath fo long prevailed 
with us. 
As far as I can be Informed, after very dili- 
gent inquiries, it is peculiar to England ; and I 
never faw but one yew-tree in a Scotch church-' 
yard which was of fo extraordinary a fize, that 
yon will forgive me, I am fure, for mentioning itj 
though it hath no relation to the main purpole of my 
letter. 
It continues to vegetate at prefent in the church- 
yard of Glen-Lyon, a valley that takes its name from 
a river which runs through it, and empties itfelf into 
the Tay not fareaftward from Taymouth, a moft ca- 
pital and pidurefque feat of the Earl of Bredal- 
bane’s. 
I meafured the circumference of this yew twice, 
and therefore cannot be miflaken, when I in- - 
form you that it amounted to fifty-two feet. Nor- 
thing fcarcely now remains but the outward bark, 
which hath been feparated by the centre of the 
tree’s decaying within thefe twenty years. What 
{fill appears, however, is thirty-four feet in circum- 
ference. 
This, therefore, is, perhaps, the largeft tree we 
have any account of; as the great chefnut at Tort- 
worth, in Glouceflerfhire, was only 51 feet in cir- 
cumference, when meafured very accurately forty 
years ago by Greening, the father of the prefent gar- 
dener of that name. 
To the catalogue of doubtful trees, I muft alfo add 
the Abelc, or White Poplar, having never feen 
to the rules which 1 have 
ventured 
d growing according 
