6 inches; and at Boconnoc, Cornwall, the seat of J.B. Fortescue, Esq., a tree was recorded in 1891 as being 85 feet high by 12 feet in girth at the age of 48 years.[1] In 1905 Elwes measured this and found it to be 86 by 15 feet.
At the same time* a tree growing at Howick Hall, Northumberland, the seat of Earl Grey, was 90 feet high at the age of 58 years.
At Beauport, Sussex, a tree measured in 1904 95 feet by 12 feet 10 inches. It has very wide-spreading superficial roots, one extending over the ground 16 feet in length. According to Sir Archibald Lamb, the tree five years ago was 12 feet 3 inches at 3 feet up, its present girth (1904) at that height being 13 feet 4 inches (Plate 30).
In Scotland the largest tree we know of, and probably the largest in Great Britain, is at Castle Menzies, said to have been 46 years old in October 1892, when its exact measurement was given by Mr. J. Ewing as 96½ feet high by 11 feet in girth. I measured it carefully in April 1904, and found it to be 110 feet high by 13 feet 2 inches. This tree is growing on the banks of a pond in good and damp soil, and has produced a greater amount of timber in a short time than any conifer I know in Scotland, except, perhaps, the Douglas fir, though Sequoia sempervirens may run it close in England. But spruce timber grown so fast is very soft, coarse, and knotty, close planting being essential to give the tree any economic value.
At Abercairney, Perthshire, there is a tree which was measured by Henry in August 1904, as 99 feet in height by 9 feet 9 inches in girth. This was 76 feet by 7 feet 5 inches in 1891.[2]
At the Keillour Pinetum,[3] in the same county, on boggy ground on a hillside, there is a remarkable Menzies' spruce, 86 feet in height by 15 feet 9 inches in girth. It has wide-spreading buttressed roots, and is branched to the ground. According to a MS. account in the possession of Col. Smythe of Methven Castle this tree was planted in 1834 or 1835. In this pinetum many species of conifers were planted in these two years, and owing to the wet, boggy nature of the soil some kinds have grown slowly, such as Picea nigra, Pinus Cembra, Abies balsamea, and Abies Pinsapo. Abies grandis has perhaps succeeded best, next to Picea sitchensis, which has produced an amount of timber far in excess of the other species. Abies grandis here is 90 feet by 7 feet 3 inches. A Picea alba, planted presumably at the same time, is only 52 feet by 5½ feet.
Mr. Crozier reports that there is a Menzies' spruce 13 or 14 feet in girth at Dunrobin in Sutherland.
At Murray thwaite, in Dumfriesshire, the seat of W. Murray, Esq., a tree 78 feet by 8 feet 10 inches, planted about the year 1855, is growing near a pond, and is a fine healthy specimen, broadly pyramidal, and feathered to the ground.
A tree[4] at Keir, near Dunblane, measured, in 1905, 82 feet by 9 feet 10 inches. At Smeaton Hepburn, Haddington, the seat of Sir Archibald Buchan Hepburn, Bart., where there is a remarkably varied collection of trees, a fine Menzies' spruce
