President's Address. 151 



hollows, &c., I found Don's P. sylvestris, var. horizonfalis- 

 almost exclusively or largely prevalent, having by their 

 more rapid and larger growth overtopped and destroyed 

 most of the others ; which were only seen in excess where 

 the soil was surcharged with moisture or from other un- 

 favourable causes, and where consequently they were 

 thinner and had more room for developing their character- 

 istic appearances. In places where all the varieties were 

 intermingled, the greater abundance of cones on the dwarfer 

 as well as more fastigiate or upright branching trees than 

 on those of the horizontal variety was very marked, show- 

 ing the accuracy of Don's opinions that the degeneracy of 

 the Scotch fir in low country plantations was in conse- 

 quence of the best native variety producing its cones much 

 more sparingly than the others, while they were also less 

 easily got at ; and the seed gatherers, being paid for 

 quantity and not for quality, seized upon those cones that 

 were most easily obtained, which practice, having been 

 continued througliout many generations of planted trees, 

 has resulted in the too great predominance of the compara- 

 tively wortliless " common or lowland Scotch fir." 



VII. Artificial selection of Plants. — The concluding re- 

 marks in the last paragraph relative to the deterioration of 

 the Scotch pine may be looked on as showing an example 

 of the bad effects that may be attendant on artificial selec- 

 tion. And with the larch {Larix europced) a change is 

 also progressing, which, however, presents the appearance 

 of being beneficial rather than otherwise, and which has led 

 to the name of common larch being employed by arbori- 

 culturists to the produce of home-grown seeds, and native 

 larch to that of seeds collected in the native larch forests 

 of continental Europe. It is well known to nurserymen 

 and foresters that plants reared from home-grown larch 

 seeds are much hardier in their young stages than those 

 grown from seeds that have been collected in the native 

 larch forests, and that even when older and after being 

 planted out, the latter are more liable to have their tops 

 nipped and be otherwise injured by early frosts than the 

 others. When the larch was first introduced into Britain 

 from its congenial habitats on the northern slopes of the 

 Alps, the Apennines, or the Carpathian Mountains, it may 



