  We examine neutron star properties based on a model of dense matter composed
of B=1 skyrmions immersed in a mesonic mean field background. The model
realizes spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking non-linearly and incorporates
scale-breaking of QCD through a dilaton VEV that also affects the mean fields.
Quartic self-interactions among the vector mesons are introduced on grounds of
naturalness in the corresponding effective field theory. Within a plausible
range of the quartic couplings, the model generates neutron star masses and
radii that are consistent with a preponderance of observational constraints,
including recent ones that point to the existence of relatively massive neutron
stars with mass M 1.7 Msun and radius R (12-14) km. If the existence of neutron
stars with such dimensions is confirmed, matter at supra-nuclear density is
stiffer than extrapolations of most microscopic models suggest.
