268 EXGLISII BOTANY. 



single trees, or iu a judicious group, but generally in close compact bodies, in thick 

 array, which sufibcates or cramps them, and, if ever they get loose from this bondage, 

 they are already ruined. Their lateral branches are gone, and their stems are drawn 

 into poles, on which their heads appear stuck as on a centre ; whereas, if the tree 

 had been grown in its natural state, all mischief had been prevented ; its stem would 

 have taken an easy sweep, and its lateral branches, which naturally grow with almost 

 as much beautiful in-egularity as those of deciduous trees, would have hung loosely 

 and negligently, and the more so, as there is something peculiarly light and feathery 

 in its foliage." He adds, "The Scotch fir in perfection I think a very fine tree, 

 thouo-h we have little idea of its beauty, and it is generally treated with contempt. 

 It is a hardy plant, and is therefore put to every servile office. If you wish to screen 

 your house from the south-west wind, plant Scotch firs, and plant them close and 

 thick. If you want to shelter a nui'sery of young trees, plant Scotch firs, and the 

 phrase is, you may afterwards weed them out as you please. This is ignominious. 

 I wish not to rob society of these hardy services from the Scotch fir, nor do I mean to 

 set it in competition with many trees of the forest which, in their infant state, it is 

 accustomed to shelter. All I mean is, to rescue it from the disgrace of being thought 

 fit for nothing else, and to establish its character as a picturesque tree." Sir T. D. 

 Lauder agrees Avith Mr. Gilpin in his approbation of the Scotch fir, and Mr. Loudon 

 says that he has seen it towering in full majesty in the midst of some appropriate 

 Highland scene, and sending its limbs abroad with all the unconstrained freedom of 

 a hardy mountaineer, as if it claimed dominion over the savage regions around it, and 

 he has looked upon it as a very sublime object. People who have not seen it in its 

 native climate and soil, and who judge of it from the wretched abortions which are 

 swaddled and suffocated in English plantations, in deep, heavy, and eternally wet 

 clays, may well call it a wretched tree ; but when its foot is among its own Highland 

 heather, and when it stands freely on its native knoll of dry gravel or thinly-covered 

 rock, over wliich its roots wander far in the wildest reticulation, whilst its tall, 

 furrowed, and often gracefully sweeping red and grey trunk of enormous circum- 

 ference rears aloft its high umbrageous canopy, then would the greatest sceptic on 

 this point be compelled to prostrate his mind before it with a veneration which per- 

 haps was never before excited in him by any other tree. Milton Avrites of the pine- 

 tree. Speaking of the fallen angels, he says : — 



" Faithful, now they stood. 

 Their glory withered ; as Avhen heaven's fire 

 Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines. 

 With singed top their stately growth, though bare, 

 Stands on the blasted heath." 



The pine is the badge of the clan Mac Gregor, and, according to " The Lady of the 

 Lake," of the Mac Alpines also : — 



*' Hail to the chief who in triumph advances ! 

 Honoured and blest be the evergreen pine ! 

 Long may the tree in his banner that glances 

 Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line." 



And again Sir Walter Scott writes : — 



" And higher yet the pine-tree hung 

 His shatter'd trunk, and frequent flung. 

 Where seem'd the cliffs to meet on high, 

 His boughs athwart the narrow'd sky." 



