REPORT ON A VISIT TO SCOTTISH AND ENGLISH FORESTS. 201 
introduction into all future plantations; and it is, moreover, as 
much indigenous as the Scots fir and birch. In many cases even it 
might with great advantage be substituted for this latter, or, better 
still, mixed with it. 
Considering, too, the wonderful success that has attended the intro- 
duction of the larch, we think that a similar attempt might be made 
to acclimatise the Pinus montana in the peat mosses. These 
immense sponges, so to speak, which cover sometimes entire dis- 
tricts, discharge their dark-coloured waters into all the streams, and 
give to the lakes and rivers of Scotland that sombre tint which is 
so peculiar to them. The fuel which they afford is of very second- 
rate quality ; and supposing that half the surface was converted 
into plantations, there would still be enough peat left to keep going 
all the whisky-stills on the country-side. 
As foresters of the Continental school, accustomed to live among 
forests regularly managed, and having for their sole object the produc- 
tion of timber, we had no little difficulty in understanding the widely 
different motives which actuate forest cultivation in this country. 
Everywhere we found the forests fenced in on all sides with walls 
and hedges; and, as a matter of fact, the forester or agent generally 
carries the keys of the gates in his pocket. We learnt that these 
costly enclosures were erected, not for the purpose of keeping out the 
cattle and deer, as in the Jura, but for the purpose of keeping them 
in: it appeared to us like shutting up the wolf in the sheepfold. 
We were also struck by the monotonous regularity in the height 
and age of the trees—unmistakable sign of their artificial origin 
and want of methodical management. The forest, here left to its 
own devices, continues growing just as the hand of man has planted 
it ; the undergrowth is constantly grazed down by the sheep and 
cattle, and nature, in spite of the immense resources at her disposal, 
is quite powerless to modify the work of the planter, or repair the 
errors committed by woodcutters. 
When, under such circumstances, the time arrives for the trees to 
be cut down, or should they be uprooted by a hurricane, the forest 
disappears in its entirety, owing to the total want of young growth, 
which is necessary as a link between the old forest and the new one 
which ought to be created. Such, at least, appears to us to be the 
case in all the forests that we visited in the valley of the Tay and 
its tributaries, and further north, near the foot of Cairngorm. 
Not far from a mansion to which are attached some of the 
pleasantest recollections of our tour, we saw the remains of a noble 
