Page:Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Volume 73 (1847).djvu/263

35 in Cornwall than in any other county. But the Pinus Austriaca is in many respects superior. The Pinaster, indeed, grows more rapidly, presents a fuller mass of foliage to our prevailing winds, and consequently is an excellent nurse in an exposed situation; but it is more difficult to rear than the Pinus Austriaca, and suffers much in the nursery in a very dry, or very wet season. An unfavourable season has sometimes killed from one third to half of my young Pinasters; whilst at the same time, and in the same nursery, I have not lost more than five per cent. of my Austriacas. The Pinaster is also less firmly rooted, and generally requires to be banked up after a storm for the first three years. The wood of the Pinaster is brittle, and subject to the worm: the Austriaca, as far as I can judge from cutting down small trees, appears tough, and is said to be durable, and, from the comparative straightness of its stem, is much better calculated for planking. It does not thrive like the Pinaster in a dry stony soil, but it promises to bear exposure to the sea air equally well. The largest of my Austriacas, planted probably in 1839, is eleven feet high and two inches and an eighth in diameter, three feet above the ground. A few are beginning to produce cones which are about the size of those of the Scotch Fir; still this Pine does not bear cones either so early or so freely as the Pinaster. A shelter having been formed by the Pinaster and the Austriaca, other and less hardy pines may be planted, even in exposed situations; the Scotch Fir, the Larch, the Spruce, and the Silver; though the latter endures exposure better than the other Pines. I have mentioned that the Pines of India succeed in Cornwall: of these the Cedrus Deodara is the most graceful and vigorous: the Abies Morinda promises well, and will grow in moderately exposed situations: the Pinus excelsa likes shelter, yet grows feebly without it, the wood is soft, like the kindred Pine, the Weymouth. The Picea Webbiana is a very slowly growing Pine, though highly ornamental, where, as at Dropmore, it exhibits its purple cones. I have not yet succeeded in raising the Pinus longifolia, and my plants of the Pinus Gerardiana are hardly sufficiently advanced to exhibit their character. There is one Pine, the produce of California, which stands our climate, and promises to be a great ornament to our plantations,-the Pinus insignis: it has a rich full foliage of various shades of green, grows as freely as the Pinaster, and, like that Pine, requires to be occasionally banked up if planted in an exposed situation. I have not yet tried it in situations fully exposed to the winds; but it has all the appearance of being very hardy,