Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-07-11
A STORY OF TREES.
Macbeth's Surviving Birnam Oak
the Larch in Great Britain.

| From the Pail Mall Gazette.
| 1t is just 165 years ago since the second
| Duke of Athole, passionate lover of
trees, received from Mr.. Menzies of Gull
| dares few young trees from the Tyrol of
| species hitherto unknown in Great Brit
ain. 1t was deemed doubtful whether ma
tives Of region so southerly as the Tyrol
would endure the rigors of highland win
ter, so the seedlings were committed to
the care of the gardener at Dunkeld House,
| who bestowed them tenderly in green
house. Moist warmth and close atmos-
phere were conditions least favorable to
the little mountaineers; spindling sadly,
most Of them died, and the whole were
cast out on the waste heap. Two Of them
retained enough vitality to revive in the
clear, sharp air. They struck their root
let's into the sandy soil, and the duke
probably had forgotten all about Mr.. Men
zies gift. when one April morning his eye
fell upon a couple of dainty sapings,
feathered with tender green and studded
with crimson bosses. Such was the hap
hazard introduction of the larch into
Great Britain. The pair of outcasts may
still be viewed near the west end of Dun
keld Cathedral, mighty columns clothed
| with deeply sculptured bark, towering to
the height Of 100 feet, with far-spreading
limbs casting dappled shade upon the green
sward.
The incident above described marked a
notable era in British forestry. The duke
was so well pleased with the grace and
vigor of the foreigners that, before his
death in 1764, he had planted twenty
square miles of his land with larches. For
better or for worse, an element had ben
imported into highland landscape which,
more than any other, has wrought a
change upon the aspect of our hillsides and
glens. There are but three coniferous trees
| Indigenous to Britain, the Scots pine, the
| yew and the lowly Juniper. all Of them
evergreen. The larch invasion cannot be
reckoned an enrichment of the native
woodland because. lovely as this tree Is in
| spring. when 1t puts forth its exquisite To-
| liage Of malachite green, in winter larch
wood is cold and bare, and the eye draws
little solace from the eXpanse of ashen
yellow which has been made to replace
the rich velvet mantle of Scots pine, re-
heved by cleaning, ruddy boughs.
As did stand my watch upon the hill.
looked toward Birnam and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.
Birnam wood has long since been felled
and has either come up again in the form
of stool-grown oaks, never SO free the
original trees from seed, or has been re-
planted with spruce and larch. But still
there stands between Birnam Hotel and
the river giant oak, reputed to be the last
survivor of Macbeth's moving grove" 1t
girths twenty-five feet at four feet from the
u, X d
inches. Hard by stands a formidable rival
to the native, in the shape of huge syca-
more, which Is not tree Indigenous to
Britain. This monster has swelled to a
girth Of twenty-four feet four at four feet
from the ground, while, measured round
the exposed part of the trunk at the ground
level, it gives dimension of upward Of
fifty feet. Birnam Hill itself is still
clothed in part with forest, but the trees
are nearly all exotic-larch and spruce
save where the birch has sprung up thick
ly in the gladeS rent by storms.
This pass of Birnam, of old the main
portal to the Highlands of Breadalbane
and Blair Athol, is the choicest ground In
all Scotland for the lover Of trees. For
many centuries the forest wealth of North
Britain received ruthless, spendthrift ham
ding. Generation after generation cut and
came again for their hand-to-mOuth wants
without thought, apparently, for those
who should come after them; until, at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, Scot
land had assumed that dispiriting naked
ness which was to justify DIR. Johnson in
his gibe that in all his Scottish travels he
never saw but three trees big enough to
hang a man upon. Dunkeld and Birnam
got good start in reafforestation through
the precedence of the aforesaid Duke
of Athole Much Of the ground about Dun
keld Is so steep as to be quite inaccessible
for ordinary planting operations; so that
one wonders how exotic trees like larch
spruce and silver fir obtained their foot
hold on these cliffs which they do so greatly
adorn. The tradition runs that Napier the
engineer. being visit to the planting
duke, and sympathiZing with his hosts de-
| sire to restore the woodland caused tin
| canisters to be filed with tree seeds and
| fired out of cannon against the heights.
| The canisters, bursting against the rocks.
scattered the seeds bravely, so that now
| every ledge, every Granny on Crag-y-Barns
| and Craig Vinean bears noble timber.