"At Thriepwood, in Dalserf parish, and county of Lanark, the trunk of an oak-tree 65 feet in length was a few years ago dug from under moss. It was as straight as the mast of a ship, and so equal in thickness at both ends, that it was not easy to say which was the root. Both these trees had grown at 500 feet of altitude above the level of the sea, and on ground on which it would be difficult to rear an oak to the twentieth part of the size. "Many fir-trees 100 feet in length have been found under moss. But, what is still more surprising, oak-trees 100 feet long were found on draining Hartfield Moss in Yorkshire. They were as black as ebony, and some of them sold one hundred and fifty years ago as high as £15 for one tree. One oak-tree was dug from under that moss, which measured 120 feet in length, 12 feet in diameter at the root, and 6 feet diameter at the top! Twenty pounds sterling was then offered for that single tree. One of the same dimensions, with its bark, would sell now at £300, but no such tree at present exists in Europe.... "But the climate was then also more congenial to the growth of fruits, grapes, etc., as we have seen, and also of grain, than it is now. The records of the Religious Houses show that wheat was paid as a tithe from lands on which human industry could not now raise that species of grain. Wheat was paid annually as a tithe to the Priory of Lesmahagow from lands in that parish, on which that species of grain has not been sown for several centuries past, and where it could not now be raised; where, under the present economy, oats can scarcely be brought to perfection. The minister of Glenluce, in the Statistical Account of his parish, mentions a farm that paid to the monastery of Glenluce twelve bolls of wheat and the same quantity of barley as a tithe. But such is the melancholy alteration that, about thirty years ago, that very farm was set at £12 of yearly rent. Similar instances might be pointed out in many parts of Scotland."