W. de Winton, Esq., there is a very fine group of twelve old larches 90 to 100 feet high, the largest of which measured 11 feet 10 inches, 11 feet 1 inch, and 10 feet 6 inches in girth when I saw them in 1906. At Dynevor Castle, in a low-lying damp spot, there is a very fine larch about 100 feet high and 9 feet 10 inches in girth, which may contain as much as 300 feet of timber. At Hafod, in Cardiganshire, the seat of T.J. Waddingham, Esq., there were planted in the year 1800 400,000 larch trees on a surface of 44 acres, for which the then proprietor, J. Jones, Esq., obtained a gold medal from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts.[1] Of these, I am informed by M.D. Barkley, Esq., many still remain, and a section of one which he sent me shows that they have grown to magnificent trees. As a rule, however, the large plantations in Wales are not allowed to stand to any great age, being more valuable when large enough to make pit timber.
In Scotland the number of larches remarkable for their size is so great that it is not easy to make a selection, almost every large estate, especially in the Highlands, having splendid trees of great age. So far as I can learn, the trees on Drummond Hill, near Taymouth Castle, the Perthshire seat of the Marquis of Breadalbane, are actually the largest in Great Britain. I visited this place in April 1904 and carefully measured the best trees myself. They are growing on the slope of a hill facing south in good open loamy soil, overlying rock, from which, in some places, springs of water rise; and seem to owe their immense size in part to the fact of their having been mixed with beech and oak, which were planted at or about the same time, and which they have far surpassed in height. The finest tree is figured in Plate 101, and is about 115 feet in height by 17 in girth. It carries its bulk very well up to at least fifty feet, where some large branches go off, and contains, according to Mr. Peter Mackay, the forester, over 500 feet of timber. I estimated the first length alone at 450 feet, the next at 100 feet, and the top and branches at about 50 feet more, so that this tree must contain nearer 600 than 500 cubic feet. In November 1893 a tree near it on the same hill was blown down, and the butt, which was sold, weighed ten tons on the railway, or about 500 cubic feet, besides which three tons more were cut up on the estate. Near it is a tree (Plate 102) remarkable for being divided at about 20 feet up into four large upright stems, a rare occurrence in this species. It is nearly the same height and girth as the first, and may contain as much timber. A third, as measured by the forester, has a bole of only 6 feet long, girthing at 1 foot from the ground no less than 24 feet, and at 5 feet 17 feet 9 inches; it divides into two huge trunks over 100 feet high. These trees are believed to be from 160 to 180 years old, and were probably planted as early as those at Dunkeld.
The next largest and probably the best known larches in Scotland are the so-called Mother Larches, which stand close to the ruins of the Cathedral at Dunkeld (Plate 103), and which were planted, according to the inscription on a stone slab in the wall close by, in 1738 by James, third Duke of Atholl, who, according to Hunter, obtained them from Mr. Menzies of Culdares, who brought a few small plants from the Tyrol in his portmanteau; but in an account of the larch plantations on the estates of Atholl and Dunkeld, published in the Transactzons of the Highland Society
- ↑ Michie, The Larch, 63 (1885).
