FOR PLANTING IN SCOTLAND. 59 



situation, and the smoke-charged atmosphere of the district is 

 very inimical to the life of Conifera^. Last winter (1879-80), in 

 this locality, the damage done by the severity of the winter was 

 excessive. Hundreds of Welliiigtonia gigantea w^ere killed by 

 the frost, and were cut down and sent to the colliery works and 

 made into posts ; the wood was very soft and porous. At Lamb- 

 ton Park alone 350 cart loads of evergreen bushes and trees 

 killed by the winter's frost were carted away ; and thousands of 

 common English yews, up to 25 feet in height, w^ere killed, and 

 scarcely one left with a live terminal shoot, and even Rhododen- 

 dron 2^onticum suffered severely. These facts are mentioned, 

 not to suggest that the situation is severely exposed, liable to 

 suffer from extremes of temperature such as were experienced 

 last winter, but to show that where P. insignis has re2:>eatedly 

 failed, only in very extraordinary seasons (such as in 1879-80) 

 have many hardy and long introduced and acclimatised ever- 

 greens also succumbed. 



In the more southern counties of England the introduction of 

 the Finns insignis has been more successful. At Dropmore, 

 Maidenhead, at an altitude of 200 feet above sea-level, in a 

 soil of a red, hard, gravelly nature, and rather sterile, and in 

 other sites of a peaty description and in poor sandy loam, it 

 has done well. The soil was prepared, however, for the plants, 

 which, as seedlings, were planted in 1839, and are now trees 

 11 feet in girth at 5 feet from the ground, and fully 70 feet in 

 height. In this place plants from cuttings, planted also in 1839, 

 and receiving in every respect the same treatment as the seed- 

 lings have done and growing under identical influences, are now 

 only about 60 feet high and 10 feet in circumference at 5 feet 

 from the ground. This is interesting to mention, as it clearly 

 corroborates the opinion that seedlings rush away at first much 

 better, and obtain a start and superiority of habit in developing 

 their boles, which the artificially created tree from a cutting 

 never equals. Again, at Possingworth, Hawkhurst, in Kent, 

 about twelve miles from the south coast, at an altitude of 

 450 feet above sea-level, and much exposed to the gales from the 

 south-west, the l.n-iny wind seems in no way to affect P. insignis, 

 and it is there developing a rapidity of growth truly surprising, 

 and is the only other pine, excepting Picca pinsajK), which can 

 be pronounced really hardy. The following are dimensions of 

 Bome of the ])rincipal specimens i)resently growing at Possing- 

 worth kindly taken in August of the present year by ^Ir. 

 Huth :— 



No. 1. Height, 49 feet; girth at 3 feet from ground, 5 feet 

 2 inches ; and at 5 feet, 4 feet 11 inches ; age, thirty years. Tliis 

 plant was trans]»lanted, and brought by machines a considerable 

 distance fifteen years ago, but does not seem to have suffered by 



