on his father's death and while only seventeen, he had to take over the responsibilities of managing and running the affairs of a property estate at Gourdiehill near Errol, Perth and Kinross in the Carse of Gowrie, between Perth and Dundee. Over the years he successfully nurtured, cultivated, and transformed much of the estate's farmland and pastures into several large orchards of apple and pear trees, numbering over 10,000. He became an avid proponent as well as interested researcher of both silviculture and horticulture, both of which influenced his growing awareness of the forces of nature. This awareness, along with his own experiences acquired from years of working his own modest estate would later frame a strong base of reference to form his own opinions and theories. Between 1807 and 1831 (when On Naval Timber and Arboriculture was published) he periodically travelled to Europe, sometimes on business, sometimes seeking scientific enlightenment or agricultural or economic advice: a trip to Paris in 1815 had to be cut short when Napoleon returned from Elba. Between 1840 and 1850, Matthew travelled extensively in what is now northern Germany; recognising the commercial potential of Hamburg he bought two farms in Schleswig-Holstein. Matthew married his maternal first cousin, Christian Nicol in 1817, and they had eight children: John (born 1818), Robert (1820), Alexander (1821), Charles (1824), Euphemia (1826), Agnes (1828), James Edward (1830), and Helen Amelia (1833). Robert farmed Gourdiehill in Patrick's old age, Alexander took over the German interests; the other three sons emigrated, initially to America. Matthew became interested in the colonisation of New Zealand and was instrumental in setting up a "Scottish New Zealand Land Company". At his urging, James and Charles Matthew emigrated to New Zealand, where they set up one of the earliest commercial orchards in Australasia using seed and seedlings from Gourdiehill. John Matthew remained in America, sending botanical tree specimens back to his father; these included (in 1853) the first seedlings known to have been planted in Europe of both the Giant Redwood (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and the Coastal Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). A group of trees of these species still thriving near Inchture in Perthshire comes from these seedlings. Matthew gave many more seedlings to friends, relatives and neighbours, and redwoods can be found throughout the Carse of Gowrie; these as well as some elsewhere in Scotland (e.g. at Gillies Hill near Stirling Castle) are thought to have been