72 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Stone Pine {Pinus pinea). — This useful pine with its valuable 

 nuts has suffered badly in South Africa from a fungoid disease ; 

 but in Spain and Portugal it is nearly free from it. 



Aleppo Pine {Pmus halepensis). — This has certain advantages 

 over Cluster Pine. It stands more drought; it will put up with 

 lime in the soil ; it transplants more easily ; it is somewhat 

 more shade-bearing. It is the species used for re-foresting the 

 devastated mountains of Southern Spain. 



Oaks. — Five oaks occur in Southern Portugal. The common 

 British oak {Quercus pedunculata) occurs as copse and scattered 

 trees on good soil. Portugal pays heavily for cooperage wood, 

 and wants a great deal more oak. 



Quercus lusitanica may almost be regarded as the extra-tropical 

 form of the British oak. It should occupy an important 

 part in the future forestry of Australia. It has been nearly 

 exterminated in Portugal precisely on account of its valuable 

 qualities. 



Quercus tozza somewhat resembles the Durmast Oak of 

 England ; it is not often seen as a large tree, but makes valuable 

 firewood copse. 



Quercus ilex. — The forest tree-planter in Australia and South 

 Africa will generally prefer its first cousin, the Cork Oak ; but the 

 ilex is somewhat hardier than the Cork Oak. It is the last tree 

 left on the mountains in Southern Spain and Portugal, where fires 

 and the axes and goats of the peasants have produced universal 

 desolation. Its chief value lies in acorns for pig-feeding, and 

 there is a variety termed Ballota which produces acorns nearly 

 as sweet as a chestnut. 



Chestnut {Casiania vesca) seems steadily dying out in Spain 

 and Portugal, as in other Mediterranean countries. The 

 threatened loss of this valuable tree is one of the saddest features 

 in modern European forestry. It may take a new lease of life in 

 the southern hemisphere, care being of course taken (as with 

 eucalyptus in South Africa) to import the tree without its pests. 



The Portuguese forest service is well organised, and the depart- 

 ment generally far in advance of Britain and the self-governing 

 British Colonies, except South Africa. It used to be customary 

 in the forest text-books to place Spain, Portugal, and the British 

 Empire at the bottom of the list as regards effective State 

 forestry. But forestry in Spain and Portugal is now a quarter of 

 a century ahead of that of the British Isles; and many valuable 



