Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/222

582 the most celebrated for masts and shipbuilding purposes, and has been found in France to be the best variety in cultivation, we may refer our readers to a ferent publication by Von Sivers,’ with a map of the distribution of pine and spruce, which shows a comparatively small area of the former. The author states that though the pine is everywhere at home, it grows best on sand, especially where that is underlaid by good soil, and that in favourable places it reaches often a height of 150 feet. The area which is occupied by pine plantations in Estland, Livland, and Kurland is estimated at 638 square kilometres. It would, therefore, seem that the production of pine timber is not sufficient to continue the large export upon which in the past reliance could be placed. And though there are still large reserves of pine forest in Northern Sweden and Finland, yet it was stated by Mr. A. Howard at a recent meeting of the Society of Arts, in a discussion on Sir Herbert Maxwell’s paper on Forestry, that the size of the deals imported from the Baltic is steadily diminishing, and that a much smaller proportion of 13-inch boards is now sent than was formerly the case.

In the forests of the lower valleys of the Altai Mountains in Siberia I have seen the pine attain a greater size than anywhere in Europe, some trees in the valley of the Biya river, a tributary of the Ob, which I observed in 1899, being estimated at 150 to 160 feet in height, and clean to 100 feet, at which height they looked as if they were 5 or 6 feet in girth.?

Of all the many species of pine, none is so widely distributed in Europe, so common all over Great Britain, so easy to grow as the Scots pine, or Scotch fir, as it is often incorrectly called. Its vigorous constitution and rapid growth when young enables it to exist and even to thrive in almost all situations, and though the variations which it has produced in a wild as well as in a cultivated state are innumerable, yet the most casual observer can hardly fail to distinguish it from any other species which is likely to be seen in cultivation. I have seen the tree in the greatest perfection on the sandy soils of Surrey, Sussex, Bedfordshire, and Notts, on the rich loams of the south-western and midland counties, on the dry sandy glacial deposits and heath-clad hills of the Highlands, and in many parts of Europe.

Whether the Scots pine was at first principally propagated in England from native Scotch seed or from German seed is doubtful, and probably the earliest planted trees came from various sources; but so far as my experiments have gone, it seems as though the seedlings grown from acclimatised trees are now more flourishing, and grow faster in the south of England than those from German, Highland, or Scandinavian seed. I have tried plants of the same age from all these sources in Gloucestershire, and have found those sent me from the New Forest the most promising in their younger stages. If rapidity of growth at first is any indication

1 Die Forstlichen Verhältnisse der Baltischen Provinzen, Riga, 1903.

2 Farther east, near Krasnoyarsk, a pine has been measured, which at 200 years old was 40 archines (93 feet) high, and 11 verschoks (19¼ inches) in diameter ; but this is far surpassed by the pines found near Bélovége, where trees 150 years old are said to measure 60 archines (140 feet) high by 12 verschoks (21 inches) in diameter, and contain as much as 100 sagénes (about 250 cubic feet) of timber. Cf. Les Foréts de la Russie, Paris Exp. 1900.

3 Loudon’s excellent account of the culture should also be referred to, pp. 2178–2183.