62 PINES 



P. Laricio var. Austriaca or Nigricans. — For 

 the Austrian Pine I hold no brief as a planter in the 

 Midlands. It may have its uses and serve purposes 

 in barren places, on sandy shores, where winds unkind 

 blow hard and cruel, and other inhospitable elsewheres 

 of a like nature, for all I know to the contrary. The 

 fact remains that it is neither so prepossessing in 

 appearance nor sought after so much for sawbench 

 requirements as its congeners the Scots and Corsican 

 Pines. If there is any truth in this summing up of 

 its qualities, it can only be remarked that it ought to 

 be, in most places, discarded in favour of its affinities. 



P. Leucodermis has been generally looked upon 

 as the Alpine form of the P. Laricio. It hails from 

 Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Montenegro. It was only 

 introduced to Kew in 1894. Experimentalists are 

 trying them here, and they seem very promising. 

 In the heights of their own country they appear 

 equally to scorn the summer sun and winter snow. 

 If our English hospitality may not be able to con- 

 scientiously guarantee the former and more attractive 

 side of the picture, it can fearlessly vouch for the 

 counter-attractive. It can offer in profusion — given 

 time — hard winters, late frosts, snowstorms, and 

 cold winds. It has bleak pastures in plenty, on high 

 lands and waste places in lofty situations, all adapted 

 eminently to the more abundant presence of tree-life. 

 If this is not so, a false doctrine has been dinned in 

 our ears, cast in our teeth, and thrust down our 

 throats, over and over again, from the day when 

 Evelyn, in 1662, wrote his Sylva, to the present time, 

 when the latest contribution on the subject was 

 penned and produced by Professor Stebbing. 



From the tree's historical antecedents, or anything 

 that we can learn of it, what Pine, or other Conifer, 

 we ask, is there better constituted to make experiment 



