IRISH GARDENING 



167 



mucli the same tliinj^. Anil so I went away ani.1 

 rooleil ahout anionic' llic 1111!' banks —it is more 

 intorestins;- than any play 1 know ami Uiout;li I 

 worrioil out mucii that I can mulcrslanil iIilto is 

 still a ijroat deal that is " wrop in mystery " lor 

 me. 



I.onj;', lonjf atjo IrelaiKl havl onl\ two kinils 

 of forest trees to boast oi\ and yel slie had 

 vastly mc^re reason to be proud of her forests 

 than in present days. There was the oak, and 

 there was the tree we call Scotch, or Scots fir 

 or pine. They were mixed on the lowlands, 

 but up over the wide moor and mountain lands, 

 league after leag'ue, the pine held undisputed 

 sway. Here and there a purple peak lifted 

 itself clear of the last wind-beaten climber, and 

 here and there the steep grey rock showed 

 boldlv through the green, and here and there 

 hazel apd hollv and mountain ash and yew 

 claimed and kept a foothold, but it was pure 

 pine forest, the same pine that stretched right 

 across northern Europe and Siberia. The " tree 

 of mountain race " that began at N'alentia and 

 ended at Port .Arthur. 



.\nd of these great pine woods what remains to 

 us? We have plenty of examples of natural 

 oak, poor stuff in comparison to the magnificent 

 oak, the last of which was cut for the wooden 

 walls of England. France, and Holland, but still 

 real wild wood. And we have plenty of wild 

 hazel and yew and mountain ash and holly, but, 

 strange as it may seem, the great pine woods 

 have gone so utterly that in all Irehmd we can- 

 not point with any degree of certainly to one 

 single tree and say —this was self-sown through 

 the generations and was never planted by man. 

 At Doneralle, Co. Cork, Lord Castletown has 

 trees which perhaps are exceptions. They are 

 splendid trees, and I should like to believe that 

 they are genuine Irish pine. 



Were it not for the records kept by the silent, 

 devouring bog we might almost wink our eyes 

 and think of those great forests as of a fairy 

 tale ; but it makes them very real to go down 

 into the cut-away bog and study their life his- 

 tory as writ there for those that can read it. 

 See this huge old stiunp with its gnarled 

 roots still bitten deep into the mineral soil 

 below the peal '. Face over the top with an 

 axe, so that we may gness his story — one hun- 

 dred and seventy rings in all — a fair age — but I 

 have counted tv.o hundred and forty in a bog 

 stump. For a hundred years he stood one of 



an even, aged wood. We can tell that by the 

 regular concentric rings, getting clo.ser and 

 closer as the struggle for room overhead accen- 

 tuated, and a sudden increase in growth 

 w here he got room from the blowing down of 

 a neighbour. |.\t one hundred, something 

 h.ippens. .\ sudden check all round the circle, 

 but on the east side niosl m.irked^there three 

 or four rings seem almost fused into one, and 

 they are crumpled and bulged. That is not the 

 result ol a storm, but tire— fire leaping before 

 a dry east wind, scorching and charing the 

 stout bark, and all but ending the story there. 

 He just pulled through after several years of 

 convalescence, but all his generation were 

 killed, for all the stumps thick around us date 

 from the fire -seedlings that came upon the 

 burned over ground, and but seventy years old 

 when the final catastrophe came. 



To foresters it is of special interest to study 

 the growth of some of these vanished forests. 

 Our present-day Scotch fir has fallen into evil 

 repute as a timber producer, though the 

 imported Scotch fir (red deal) from North 

 Russia fetches fabulous prices. Some people 

 contend, and I among them, that if we plant 

 the tree on the right site and treat it right we 

 can grow red deal to equal the imported limber. 

 1 am carrying out tests to prove my point ; but 

 o( this another lime. Here in the bog timber, 

 at auv rate, we can find trees to rejoice our 

 hearts. Try the axe on that half-buried log. 

 It rings as if an oak. Tear out a sliver from 

 the red-brown wood that smells fresh and 

 clean like pine shavings in a carpenter's shop, 

 and you can tie knots with it like any ash. 

 Fifteen rings to the inch it averages ; good 

 enough for an\ thing, though I have counted 

 thirty-five to the inch in bog deal. In actual 

 use for building timber, as tested in many a 

 house in the west of Ireland, no imported red 

 deal is superior, if indeed it is at all as good, as 

 the bos i^eal sawn and seasoned. 



If we could reafforest ourhills with timber as 

 .iiood as nature ^rew there of old times we should 

 have no reason to be ashamed of our work. 



^ ,^ ^< 



EUCRVPIII.V PI.NNATll-OLI.A. 

 Some years ago I remember seeing: a grand Eucry- 

 pliia pinnatifolia in the gardens of Sir Jolin Ross of 

 Bladensbiirg. at Rostrevor. Co. Down, and 1 am now in- 

 formed tliat this shnibis twentylivo feet high, which is 

 piobablya record for Ireland and Great Britain.— C.F.B. 



