some I have mentioned; and at this fine place I also remarked a large sycamore, with the bark scaling off in a very unusual way, so that it resembled the bark of an old hickory. I am indebted to Capt. Parkin for a good photo- graph of this curious tree.
At Mitford Castle, near Morpeth, Northumberland, the seat of Edward Mitford, Esq., Mr. W.H. Mason informs me that there is a very fine tree, about 100 feet in height, with a girth of 18½ feet, and a spread of branches 102 yards in circumference.
In Wales there are many fine trees, the largest that I know being at Dynevor Park, where the Hon. Walter Rice has measured one 81 feet by 15 feet 3 inches in girth. At Gwydyr Castle, Carnarvonshire, a tree, dividing into two stems at ten feet from the ground, is 86 feet high by 14 feet 8 inches in girth.
In Scotland nearly every large place has fine sycamores, some of great age ; but I have seen none to surpass in size, shape, and perfection the one which I figure (Plate 180) in front of Newbattle Abbey. This tree in 1904 was about 95 feet high by 16 feet 6 inches in girth at 5 feet, below which its roots spread out very widely. There are other large sycamores here, said by Loudon to have been planted before the Reformation, and one, which I could not identify, before 1530. Judging, however, from a beautiful photograph taken by Col. Thynne, the Newbattle tree is exceeded in height and equalled in girth by one (Plate 181) at Drumlanrig Castle, the seat of the Duke of Buccleuch, of which he gives the height as 105 feet and the girth 19 feet 6 inches. Henry, however, who measured the same tree in December 1904, made it 101 feet by 18 feet, with a bole 22 feet high dividing into two large stems.
At Castle Menzies, Perthshire, there are two magnificent trees, the largest of which is figured by Hunter.1 I found it in April 1904 to be 92 feet high by 19 feet 2 inches in girth. Probably this is the same of which Hunter says that it contains upwards of 1000 feet of timber. I have a good photograph of it, but prefer to figure (Plate 182) another sycamore, also at Castle Menzies, which, though not so tall, is 20 feet 4 inches in girth, and is remarkable on account of its short trunk, covered with great burrs and excrescences.
The tallest tree of this species which we know in any country is one at Blair Drummond, Perthshire, the seat of H. S. Home Drummond, Esq., which is drawn up in a dense wood behind the house. It was measured by Henry in 1904 as no less than 108 feet in height, though only ro feet in girth. In open ground on the same property there is another tree? of an entirely different character, which is 19 feet in girth with a short bole of 9g feet, dividing into two great limbs and forming a very widespreading crown. Its height is only 85 feet. Large variegated sycamores, one 70 feet high by 13 feet 10 inches in girth, also are growing at Blair Drummond.
At Kippenross, near Dunblane, the seat of Captain Stirling, there are the
1 Woods, Forests, and Estates of Perthshire, 397 (1883).
2 In Loudon, Gard. Mag. 1840, p. 505, there is a list of measurements of trees at Blair Drummond; and a sycamore, 80 feet high and 16 feet in girth in 1841, is probably this tree.
