1884.1 FOBESTAL NOTES. 275 



The acidity of lieatli soil it seems particularly to dislike. Its cover 

 and roots are powerless there to take possession of tlie ground, and 

 kill off, in the struggle of natural selection, the heather and other 

 weeds that occupy the soil, so that its vegetation is miserable ; and 

 this' although its cover, when well developed, appears to be thick 

 enough. 



The young sijlvestris has, in a remarkable degree, this power of 

 killing off noxious vegetation and taking undisturbed possession of 

 tlie ground. As an instance, nine years ago I put down two-year-old 

 plants in heather nearly a yard high, which their growth has 

 gradually smothered, until the soil is now as clean as a house floor. 



I think it may be useful to state the fact of Pinvs auntriaca's use- 

 lessness in such soils, as a belief in its being a universally hardy tree 

 might lead in some cases to serious disappointment. I believe all 

 continental experience — as far as I have heard — tends to show that 

 it never develops really vigorously except on soil that has a fair 

 proportion of the calcareous element. T should be glad to know if 

 any clear example to the contrary exists in the United Kingdom, 

 under its more temperate climate ; and it would be interesting to all 

 your readers, if Mr. Lipscomb could kindly give us some description 

 of the chemical composition of the soils in which his plantations of 

 Aiistviaca succeeded, and of that in which they fell away. 



In this country the Austrian Pines, though mostly very young, 

 \vere not injured in the least by the unprecedented frosts of 1879-80, 

 which attained 20^* below zero of Fahrenheit, and which destroyed, 

 besides most fruit trees and many ornamental species, all the woods 

 of Cluster Pine in the centre of France. Austriaca was much 

 damaged, however, by an invasion of insects — Curcidio pini on the 

 young plants, hylesinus piniperda on trees over eight years old — 

 attracted and propagated by the immense amount of dying wood with 

 which these terrible frosts had covered the country. Sy/vestris, which 

 was equally attacked, bore the damage much better, from the superior 

 strength of its particularly hardy constitution. It is the flerman 

 variety that is usually cultivated here, and we find its growth 

 remarkably strong and healthy, although, unfortunately, some trees 

 are of an irregular habit, which we attribute to neglect of careful 

 selection of the seed from the straightest growing trees, and of inquiry 

 into that important matter on the part of the nurserymen that rear 

 the plants. 



I should be much obliged if some of the contributors to ' Fokestry * 

 could kindly give me an accoimt of the special leading characteristics 

 of the true Highland Pine, which I am now growing from seed, 

 and the points in which lies its superiority to the foreign varieties, 

 and let us know, in particular, if it i\sually grows straight without 



