CONTINENTAL NOTES — GERMANY. 1 97 



heredity of special forms and types, even if transferred to different 

 conditions of climate, soil, etc. 



As regards the pine, Dr Kienitz devoted his attention chiefly to 

 the formation of the crown, but he suspects that the root-system 

 will eventually yield similar interesting characteristics. He 

 started his work in the forest of Brandenburg. Here he found no 

 very distinct racial type, but observed local types, and proved 

 that the characteristics of each showed themselves from the 

 earliest youth and were maintained to maturity. 



The forests of the province of Brandenburg contain large 

 numbers of pines with crooked stems and branching crowns, 

 especially in intermixture with beech, though in the vicinity pure 

 pine forests exist with fairly straight stems. Dr Kienitz ascribes 

 this occurrence to the survival of the "fittest," though not in this 

 instance the "best." The pine with a tendency to a branchy, 

 wide crown, can from the outset fight for its fair share in the 

 canopy and maintain it, whereas the more slender type loses 

 ground from the beginning, and is finally suppressed and killed 

 out. When sufficient liberty has been allowed to the trees of the 

 straight type, they grow well with the beech (see Fig. ii). The 

 formation of the crooked stems of so many pine trees in the 

 Brandenburg forests has been ascribed to the freshness of the 

 soil, but the author points out that if this were so, no straight 

 pine trees would grow on the fresh mountain soil, and this is 

 contrary to fact. 



Dr Kienitz has proved that, though much can be done by 

 suitable training of the branchy type, and with care, quite decent 

 and valuable forests of them can be grown, these trees never quite 

 lose their inborn tendency to spread out ; whereas those of the 

 straight, slender type maintain their general character when grown 

 in the open, though they may develop somewhat stronger 

 branches. 



Research has shown that even local types are transmissible, 

 though far less so than racial types, which owe their origin 

 to numerous generations propagated by selection. The young 

 trees shown in Figs. 17 and 18 are proved by evidence to be the 

 produce of that given in Fig. 11, and they already show signs of 

 their parentage. In the southern portions of the North German 

 Plain, in the valleys of the Rhine and Main, near the Boden See, 

 in the plains of France, and to the south of the Alps, the broad- 

 crowned kind is prevalent, but not to the exclusion of other forms. 



