269 



long, wliich remains intact until the leaves fall; cones small, 

 T ^^^"®s lo^g' little more tlian an inch wide, opening and 

 shedding their seed the spring after they ripen; winter buds 

 f-1 inch long. 



^It is said to have heen introduced to the British Isles about 

 1759, and a fine old tree a century old is bo be seen near the 

 Mam Gate at Kew. This tree is 95 feet high and 9 feet 5 inches 

 in girth at 5 feet above the ground.' There are also fine examples 

 in other parts of the country, notably at Holkham Hall, Nor- 

 folk. On the Holkham Estate, the Corsican pine has been used 

 for more than half a century for planting on sand dunes quite 

 close to the sea, and it has been found to be an excellent subject 

 for the purpose ; not only has it grown well in exposed places, but 

 it has reproduced itself in quantity from self-sown seeds. Un- 

 fortunately the wood matures very slowly, little heart-wood being 

 formed until the trees are approaching their full size. A trans- 

 verse section of timber in the Kew Museums, which was grown 

 in Hungary, measures in different directions 2 feet 1| inches and 

 2 feet 4 inches in diameter, and shows 246 annual rings. The 

 heart-wood is irregular in outline, but at its greatest width only 

 measures 16| inches, in another direction it measures 13^ inches 

 across, the annual rings of heart-wood in one case numbering 

 104 and in the other 82, The heart-wood is a deep reddish- 

 brown and the sap-wood is yellowish in colour. Fast grown 

 timber from Holkham is shown in ^luseum ISo. IV, at Kew. A 

 plank 2 feet 3f inches wide, showing 53 annual rings, has only 

 9 inches of heart -wood, and that is confined to 13 years' growth. 

 The same jjeculiarity has been noticed in other places notably in 

 Yorkshire on Lord Wharncliffe's Wortley Hall Estate, where 

 about 1,000,000 Corsican, and the closely allied Austrian, pines 

 have been planted. When the original plantations were formed 

 it was thought that the thinniugs could be disposed of profitably 

 in the neighbourhood for pit props, but when at the age of 17 

 years a thinning was undertaken, the timber was condemned for 

 props because of lack of heart-wood and the necessary strength, 

 K.B., 1910, p. 14. The Corsican pine has also been planted 

 extensively in North Wales, where it grows rapidly, but is dis- 

 posed to produce rather coarse timber. The best piece of British 

 grown Corsican pinewood in the Kew Museums is a small section 

 cut from a branch of the old tree at Kew. Its close annual rings 

 indicate slow growth and there is a good development of heart- 

 wood. That particular specimen weighs, excluding fractions, 

 41 lbs. a cubic foot, and a specimen from Holkham grown on 

 the sand dunes weighs 31 lbs. a cubic foot. Timber grown m 

 the Mediterranean region has a good reputation and is in con- 

 siderable demand there for general constructive work and 

 other uses for which good pme timber is required. It 

 would, therefore, appear that the tree is well worth 

 planting widely in poor soils and in exposed situations, particu- 

 larly near the sea, and in positions where it can be grown on 

 a long rotation system, or in places where it can be marketed 

 in a young state for inferior kinds of work, but it would be little 



] 



use to expect first-rate prices for young, fast-grown trees. In 



