EDINBURGH JOURNAL 



OF 



NATURAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 



MAY 1830. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



ART. I. On the Native Forests of Aberdeenshire. By the Rev. 

 J. Farquhaeson, F.R.S. — C Concluded from p. 13.) 



The facts now detailed may be deemed sufficient to account for 

 the generally very limited life of the cultivated fir, and to suggest 

 a very simple and obvious remedy for the evil. But lest it might 

 be accounted too rash to rest a principle of such important practi- 

 cal application on a basis so limited, it may be necessary to adduce, 

 as it is very easy to do, some additional facts in support of it, and 

 a brief detail of some analogous examples. 



Thus, for instance, it is a notorious fact that the trees of the out- 

 side rows of all our plantations of Scotch fir, are not subject to the 

 same early death that overtakes those of the interior. Surrounded 

 on all hands by numerous and very extensive plantations, the out- 

 side rows of which extend to very many miles, I have uniformly 

 observed that these continue so healthy, that it Avas with some sur- 

 prise I observed, during last summer, one instance of failure among 

 them in my immediate neighbourhood. These outside trees have 

 free room to extend themselves proportionally to their natural 

 growth, on one side at least, and therefore fix themselves firmly in 

 the ground, and acquire the dense foliage necessary to their perfect 

 health. There are now standing, in good health, within a mile of 

 this place, two outside trees of a recent plantation, the rest of which 

 was cut down about twenty years ago. According to information 

 I have received, this plantation had been made a little after 1740; 

 and previously to 178o, a great natural death of the trees had taken 

 place in its interior. The outside rows, however, continued healthy 

 till after nearly all the rest had perished, but were cut doym at the 



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