202 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The above refers to the real habitat of the pines, areas where 

 they form compact natural forest and do not allow themselves to 

 be ousted by trees of other species. Outside this sphere, the 

 importation of seed of the best spruce-like parent trees cannot 

 be too highly recommended, for the plains type has played the 

 most miserable role in the mid-German hills. Though the cones 

 for cultivation may be ever so carefully selected from a mother 

 tree of the slender kind growing in a locality where no fixed racial 

 type exists, there is no security that the pollen did not come from 

 one of the most sturdy broad-branched specimens, which, as a 

 rule, are much more prolific. 



Researches, chiefly historical, regarding the limits of natural pine 

 forests in Germany, are still in active progress, but they go so 

 much into detail that it would be useless for us to attempt to 

 follow them up. One of the indefatigable workers on this 

 problem, Dr Dengler of Eberswalde, sums up the results of his 

 inquiries thus: "The limitation of the natural zone of Pinus 

 sylvestris in the north and middle of Germany is, in the first instance, 

 governed by the soil ; the climate has influence only in so far 

 as, under more favourable conditions of warmth and moisture, an 

 additional aggressive power is conferred on deciduous species 

 (especially the beech), which enables them to oust the pine even 

 from its own habitat, of which it would remain sole possessor 

 under less favourable climatic conditions." 



Dr Dengler's inquiries have brought to light the fact that 

 artificial cultivations of the pine took place as early as 1423 and 

 throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Where they 

 were carried on within the natural pine zone, they succeeded and 

 produced strong and healthy timber, but outside its limits the 

 trees have, as a rule, disappeared — owing, probably, to the same 

 reason which led to the failure of more recent pine cultures in 

 such localities, viz., the use of seed produced by unsuitable parents. 

 The German Government is making every effort to supply the 

 best and most suitable seed procurable. The life of the pine, 

 driven back in the course of thousands of years to inhospitable 

 fastnesses, where no deciduous species can, in the natural course 

 of events, follow it, is even there one of continuous struggle against 

 enemies, many of which have doubtless gained in destructive power 

 through the interference of man, who, however, is at the same time 

 able to ameliorate many of the evils. Renewed inquiries as regards 

 causes, effects and remedies have of late been made in Germany. 



