New-York tribune., 1903-06-11
4 STORY OF TREES.
Macbeth's SuruiUing BirnGns Oak.
ON The Pail Mall Gazette,

From The Pail Mall Gazette
II is lust one hundred and sixty y-five years ago
since the second Duke of Athole. a passionate
lover of trees, received from Mr. Menzies. OF
Culdares, a few young trees from the 1Yrol Oh a
species hitherto unknown in Great brltalh- II
WAS deemed doubtful whether natives OF a re-
gion so southerly as the Tyrol would endure , Ine
Tigors of a Highland winter, SO the SeeulihsS
were committed to the care of the gardener AT
Dunkeld House, who bestowed them tenderly In
a greenhouse. Moist warmth and close atmos-
phere were conditions least favorable to the
little mountaineers; spindling sadly, most OF
then, died and the whole were cast out on the
waste heap. Two of them retained enough vital
ity to revive in the clear, sharp air; they struck
their rootlets into the sandy soil, and the Duke
probably had forgotten all about Mr.. Menzless
gift, when. one April morning, MS eye zen upon
a couple of dainty saplings. feathered with ten
der green. and studded with crimson bosses
Such the haphaZard Introduction OF the
larch into Great Britain. The pair Of outcasts
may still be viewed the west end Of Dun
keld Cathedral, mighty columns clothed with
deeply sculptured bark, towering TO the height
of one hundred feet. with far spreading limbs
casting dappled shade upon the greensward-
The incident above described marked a notable
era in British forestry. The Duke was so well
pleased with the grace and VigOr Of the foreign
ers that. before his death in 1864, he had planted
twenty square miles of his land with larches.
For better or for worse. element had been
imported into Highland landscape which, more
than auy other has wrought change upon the
aspect of our hiilsdes and glens. There are but
three conferous trees indigenous to Britain, the
Scots pine. the yew and the lowly juniper, all of
them evergreen. The iarCh invasion cannot be
reckoned an enrichment of the native woodland,
because. lovely this tree is in spring, when
1t puts forth its exquisite foliage 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, relieved by
cleaning, ruddy boughs-
AS ! did stand my watch upon the hill,
! look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move
has either come up again in the form OF stool
grown oaks. never free the original trees
from seed, or has been replanted with spruce
and larch. But still there stands between Bir-
nam Hotel and the river giant oak, reputed to
be the last survivor of Macbeth's moving
grove" 1t girths % feet at feet from the
ground giving a diameter of Z feet inches.
Hard by stands formidable rival to the native.
in the shape of a huge sycamore which is not
tree Indigenous to Britain. This monster has
swelled to girth of "a feet at feet from the
ground, while, mea sured round the exposed part
of the trunk at the ground level, il gives a di-
mension of upward of 30 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 thickIy in
the glades rent by storms.
This pass OF Birnanl of old the main portal to
the Highlands OF BreS dalbane and Blair Athol.
is the chofcest ground IN all Scotland Tor the
lover Of trees. For many centuries the forest
wealth of North Britain received ruthless,
spendtkrift handling Generation after genera
tion cut and came again for their hanC-to-mouth
wants without a thought apparently, for those
who should after them; until, at the be-
ginning of the eighteenth century, Scotland had
assumed that dispritng nakedness which
to Justify DR.. Johnson in his gibe that in all his
Scottish travels he never but three trees
big enough to hang a man upon. Dunkeld and
Birnam got a good start in reafforestation
through the preScience of the aforesaid
Duke of Athole. Much of the ground about
Dunkeld is steep to be quite inaccessible
for ordinary planting operations; that
wonders how exotic trees like larch. spruce and
silver fir obtained their foothold these cliffs
which they do greatly adorn. The tradition
runs that Napier the engineer. being visit
10 the planting duke, and sympathizing with
his hosts desire to restore the woodland, caused
tin canisters 10 be filed with tree seeds and
fired out of cannon against the heights The
canisters, bursting against the rocks, scattered
the seeds bravey. so that now every ledge. every
Granny on Craig-y Barns and Craig Vinean,
bears noble timber