PINETUM BRITANNICUM. 
20 
from which it recovers easily.” “ Browned by winds, not by frost.” “ Our best plant of Wellingtonia got 
as brown as a fox during the past winter.” “No doubt much of the browning we have to complain of 
here is occasioned by the cold clay subsoil; ” and so on. 
N ow, it is rather remarkable that its antipathy to wind should be declared thus early in its life. A 
fanciful person might say that nature, knowing that in very much exposed places it might from the fragility 
of its timber be snapped across as soon as it had made any progress, and before the bark was sufficiently 
thick to sustain it, thought it better to give it a constitution which would only allow it to grow in sheltered 
places, where it might endure to a good old age. There would thus be no waste, a thing which nature 
abhors as much as a vacuum. 
Notwithstanding the evidence of its occasionally succumbing to extreme cold, the unwonted degree 
of it which it stood uninjured, as well as the rapidity with which it recovered from the efifedts of it, and the 
perfedt success which has since attended it, sufficiently attest the suitableness of this tree to our climate. 
Although introduced only about 12 years, there are specimens in England which already exceed 20 feet 
in height. We shall specify its size at a few of the localities where it has thriven best, and reached the 
greatest size; and shall begin with the plants raised from the seed introduced by Mr Matthew. We 
might naturally expedf that these should be the largest, but this is not the case, a circumstance probably 
due to their being all distributed in Scotland. 
Of Mr Matthew’s consignment, then, there are two growing at Gourdiehill, near Errol, in a cold 
situation, exposed to the north wind, and in a strong clayey soil; they measure about 8 feet each in height, 
and 14 inches in circumference of stem at the ground ; both were much retarded in their early growth from 
having been kept too long in flower-pots. 
There are two plants at Megginch Castle, by Errol. T he one is now 13 feet high, 10 feet in diam¬ 
eter of branches, and the stem is 10 inches in diameter at its base. The other is 10 feet high, 8 feet in the 
diameter of its branches, and 10 inches in that of its stem. This last is by much the handsomest speci¬ 
men, the other being disfigured from growing too close to other plants. 
There are two plants at Ballendean, by Inchture, the first of which was planted out in 1859, ' m a 
hard yellowish earth, and now measures 10 feet in height, 18 feet in the circumference of its branches, 
and 18 inches in girth of stem at six inches from the ground. The other was planted in i860, in a damp 
yellowish soil, and is growing faster, being now 135 feet high, 18 feet in circumference of branches, 
and 15 inches in girth of stem. 
There is one plant growing on a dry bank at Kinnoul Nursery, Perth, which has been frequently 
transplanted, and now measures only 5 feet in height. Another single plant grows in the garden of Dr 
John Lyall, Newburgh, who raised a third part of the seed for Mr Matthew. T. his is a fine specimen, 13* 
feet high; circumference of branches, 34 feet; and of the stem at the ground, 35 feet. It would have 
been much taller if it had not lost its top thrice, once by accident and twice by insedts. 
Another of the plants raised from Mr Matthew’s seeds is at Balbirnie, Markmch, Fife. It was 
about 8 feet high in autumn i860, with a stem 31 inches in girth at the ground, and about 32 feet in the 
circumference of its branches; but having been planted in a moist hollow, very subjedt to hoar frost, it was 
much cut down and injured in the succeeding winter, from which it has but recently commenced to 
recover, and is now only 5^ feet high. 
Another at Inchry House, Fife, is 12 feet high, 23 inches in girth at the root, and about 23 feet in 
circumference round the extreme points of its branches; and the last of which we have heard is at Eglin- 
ton Castle, Ayrshire, but its dimensions we have not obtained. 
It thus appears that the tallest plants, produced from the first arrival of seeds, are only 13^ feet high ; 
while we shall immediately see that some of those reared from subsequent consignments have reached 
upwards of 20 feet. 
The height of some of the best plants in England is as follows. They are chiefly taken 
from a valuable return published in the “Transactions of the Scottish Arboricultural Society,” 
vol. 
