62 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



growing trees out of their proper milieu. Nevertheless he 

 admits that the larch, as also the Scots and Corsican pines, 

 growing with this spruce did not suffer; and it might be added 

 that the silver fir is very successful in Normandy. However, 

 if the larch did not happen to suffer from this particular trouble, 

 though out of its habitat, it suffers from other things — canker for 

 instance. 



In this connection M. Guinier lays down that if the conditions 

 of soil and climate allow recourse to a variety superior to the 

 local variety by the rapidity of its growth, straightness of 

 trunk, or any other advantageous character, we may employ 

 this variety with profit, but we run the risk of seeing the intro- 

 duced variety becoming modified more or less rapidly after the 

 first generation. This agrees with M. Huffel above. 



This matter of growing species out of their true habitat is 

 really very important, yet somehow is very little considered. 

 Prima facie it is of course unwise to employ species out of their 

 own home, yet it may still be worth while to plant here, if they 

 will f^row, — even moderately — species which in their own home 

 are unusually good, in the hope that they will at least give fair 

 results. 



III. M. Jolyet, of the Nancy Research Station, has an 

 interesting note on Banks' pine. Its chief point is its great 

 hardiness, for it can stand any amount of drought, and a very low 

 temperature indeed (-4o°C.). It can accommodate itself to 

 quite poor soils, both chemically and physically speaking. It 

 prospers in even superficial calcareous soils, and might therefore, 

 we should think, be used for planting up thin soils over chalk, 

 where even the beech is stunted. It starts quickly, but does not 

 attain great dimensions. The wood is said to be fairly good. 



IV. M. Moreau states that he has found that the planting of 

 lines of birch, with a north-south direction, at intervals in 

 nurseries of broad-leaved species, has several advantages. First, 

 since the birch is early in leaf and does not mind frost, it gives 

 useful shelter against the rising sun, that special cause of damage 

 when there is a spring frost ; secondly, it gives shelter against the 

 great heat in the dog-days, from 2 p.m. onwards : and thirdly,— a 

 special point — it is useful in dealing with an invasion of 

 cockchafers. The birch being early in leaf the cockchafers go 

 first to it, and, therefore, all that has to be done is to shake 

 the birch plants in the morning while the insects are still stupid 



