Pinus 1029 



and Miller says that at Mersham le Hatch, near Ashford, Kent, then the property 

 of Sir Wyndham Knatchbull, and still held by his descendant of the same name, it 

 produced, as early as 1726, good seed from which many of the trees in England were 

 raised. I have been unable to find any trees either at Badminton or at Longleat 

 which can be certainly looked on as the original trees j 1 but there are many places in 

 England where trees dating from at least the middle of the 18th century still survive, 

 and some of these, as will be shown later, are of great size. 



The tree is apparently at home on all good deep sandy soils, and when not too 

 dry, grows vigorously for 100 years or more in all the southern half of England; 

 ripening seed in most seasons and often reproducing itself naturally ; but in Scotland 

 it does not seem to thrive so well, probably on account of insufficient heat in 

 summer. I do not, however, think that it is likely in any part of Great Britain to 

 prove a profitable forest tree in comparison with Scots or Corsican pine, as the value 

 of its timber depends on climatic and soil conditions rarely found in this country. 



The Weymouth pine has been extensively planted in Germany, there being, for 

 example, 3,000,000 trees in the state forests of Bavaria. In central Europe, it is 

 remarkably hardy, as it is not injured by the severe winter climate, never suffers 

 from spring or autumn frosts, and is not easily broken by heavy snow. It is 

 considered, on account of the abundant fall of its soft needles, which speedily decay, 

 to be a better soil-improver than any European pine. Slow in growth during the 

 first five years, it attains about the same height as the Scots pine in the twentieth 

 year, and exceeds the latter species considerably in height and diameter growth after 

 this period. Dr. L. Wappes, 2 a Bavarian forester, states that it seeds early and 

 heavily, is readily reproduced naturally, 3 withstands crowding and shading, and 

 produces even on poor soils a large amount of timber. On very inferior soil in the 

 Palatinate, pure plantations, 104 years old, yielded per acre, 13,000 cubic ft. of timber, 

 exclusive of branches and stumps. In spite of such results, much exceeded on loamy 

 sands at other stations in Prussia and Thuringia, it is doubtful if this tree will be 

 planted extensively in the future. It is much subject to the attacks of fungi, many 

 plantations being ruined by Agaricus melleus and Peridermium Strobi, while deer 

 bite the shoots and gnaw the bark, injuring many trees in the German forests. 



The timber produced in central Europe appears to be as good as that of America, 

 and Wappes states that though little valued at first, it is now readily saleable, the 

 price in 1899 being double that of 1882. Mayr 4 gives an instructive comparison of 

 the wood of two trees, one 87 years old, grown in Bavaria ; the other, 138 years old, 

 grown in Wisconsin. The specific gravity of both was identical ; and the Bavarian 



1 Forbes, in Pin. Woburn. 83 (1839), says : " The original tree, first brought to England by Viscount Weymouth, is now 

 standing, though perfectly decayed, in a timber grove at Longleat." According to Museum Rusticanum, iv. 381 (1765)) gld 

 and silver medals were offered by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, in 1765 and succeeding years, for plantations of 

 Weymouth Pine. According to Dillwyn, Hortus Collinsonianus, 40 (1843), Bartram sent a small tree to Collinson in 1737, 

 which was growing at Mill Hill in 1756, when it was 40 ft. high. 



1 The articles on the cultivation of this pine in Germany, which Dr. Wappes published in Lorey's Allgemeine Font- und 

 Jagdzcilung for 1899, are abstracted by Spalding, in U.S. Forestry Bulletin, No. 22, The White Pine, p. 68 (1899). 



* Unwin, Future Forest Trees, 90, fig. 1 (1905), gives a good picture of natural reproduction of the Weymouth pine in 

 the Rhine Palatinate. 



* Fremdldnd. Wold- und Parkbtiume, 378 (1906). Mayr's article on "White Pine in Europe," published in Garden and 

 Forest, 1888, p. 10, should also be consulted. 



