70 feet by 15 feet 8 inches in 1881. Sir Archibald Buchan-Hepburn reports a tree at Smeaton-Hepburn 124 feet by 11 feet in 1908.
But these are much exceeded in height by a tree west of the Beech Walk at Mountstuart in the island of Bute, which James Kay’ states to have been in 1879 no less than 134 feet high by 9 feet 4 inches, with a bole of 35 feet 6 inches, and if this measurement was correct it must have been the tallest hardwood tree in Scotland. It was estimated to contain 273 feet of timber. I could not, however, identify this tree when I visited Mountstuart in 1906, and fear that, like some of the splendid beech trees which grew there, it has fallen.
At Ochtertyre, Perthshire, Hunter? records an ash supposed to be about 400 years old, which measured in 1881 34 feet 10 inches at 1 foot and 20 feet 8 inches at 5 feet, and I am informed by the widow of the late gardener, Mr. Conacher, that the tree still remains in very good condition. At Keir, near the Bridge of Allan, there is a remarkable ash stool, from which four stems proceed, averaging 6 feet 4 inches in girth and 103 feet in height. A tape 16 feet 10 inches long, girths the four stems at 5 feet from the ground. At Dupplin Castle I measured a fine tree about 100 feet high with a stem clean to 45 feet and 10 feet 7 inches in girth. At Dalswinton, Dumfriesshire, Henry measured in 1904, a tree 110 feet by 8 feet 3 inches, with a fine clean stem; and another 93 feet by 13 feet 3 inches.
Near Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire, the property of the Earl of Cawdor, and one of the most beautifully situated of the really old inhabited castles in Scotland, there is a very large, though branchy and ill-shaped ash no less than 21 feet in girth. At Brodie Castle, Morayshire, there is a very large tree, 18 feet 8 inches in girth, of which the owner has kindly sent me a photograph; and at Darnaway, in the same county, an immense tree of great age, much damaged by storms, existed in 1881. Even as far north as Conon House, Ross-shire, the seat of Sir Kenneth MacKenzie of Gairloch, the ash grows extremely well in a low-lying flat. Here I saw a lot of beautifully grown, though not very large trees, which would have been a credit to any woodland in the south.
On the shore of Loch Fyne, a mile north of Minard Castle, a curious ash grows on the beach at high-water mark, which is known as the “ Nine Sisters,” because nine stems sprang from the same root, the largest of which when I saw them in 1907 were 7 to 9 feet in girth.
In Ireland the ash thrives exceedingly well ; and often attains an immense size. In Co. Meath, where the soil is remarkably fertile, it has in many parts expelled all the other trees from the hedgerows ; and one may drive long distances on the roads between lines of flourishing ash trees, without seeing a single oak or beech.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century several ash trees of enormous size were still living, of which Hayes gives an account? He relates, on the authority of an official of the Dublin Society, that a tree was then standing at Donirey near a Castle in Co. Galway, which measured in girth 42 feet at 4 feet and 33 feet at 6 feet. The trunk had long been hollow, having been used 25 years before as a
1 Trans. Scot. Arb. Soc. ix. 75 (1879).
2 Op. cit. 454.
3 Practical Treatise on Planting, 137, 142, 148 (1794).
