190 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



be necessary to exclude those who may be physically inferior 

 from wounds or other causes, and also those who are likely 

 to suffer from permanent disablement in some form or other. 

 While I consider forestry employment to be about the most 

 healthy as well as the most interesting and varied of all rural 

 work, it nevertheless demands considerable physical strength, 

 and without this a high degree of skill is of no avail. I would 

 further suggest that quite young men be given the preference, as 

 it is only in rare instances that men over say twenty-five years 

 of age, who have not had previous experience, ever become 

 really expert fellers of timber with axe and saw. These 

 remarks apply more particularly to men who are able to under- 

 take all branches of forestry work, and those of a lower standard 

 of physical fitness might be suitable for work in connection with 

 re-afforestation only. 



I would suggest that the training should include a knowledge 

 of hedging and wire-fencing work — more especially the former. — 

 Yours faithfully, Buccleuch. 



19. The Coniferous Forests of Eastern 

 North America.^ 



By Dr Roland M. Harper. 



The Hemlock {Tsuga Canadensis)- has a distribution very 

 similar to that of the white pine, except that it is a little more 

 southerly. It grows in several counties of Alabama, in which 

 state the white pine is unknown. It commonly grows mixed with 

 various hardwood trees, and sometimes with white pine besides. 

 It prefers moderately dry soils with a considerable amount of 

 humus, perhaps more than any other eastern conifer. (The states 

 which, according to the last census, cut more hemlock lumber than 

 white pine — making due allowance for the inclusion of more than 

 one species under the same name — have richer soils, on the 

 whole, than those in which the reverse is true.) 



1 Continued from Vol. xxxi. p. 65. 



- Also called " spruce pine " in Georgia and Alabama, if not farther north. 

 The settlement of Spruce Pine, Ala., takes its name from this tree (see Bull, 

 Torrey Bot. Club, vol. xxxiii. p. 524, 1906). and the same may be true of the 

 place similarly named in North Carolina and even of Spruce, Ga. 



