TIMBER AND SOILS. 101 



ceed in rotation silver fir, pineaster, and cedar. The 

 latter tree is not valued in Britain as a timber tree, 

 chiefly perhaps owing to the reason ^that it is not 

 generally grown in those situations where its wood 

 becomes hard, which used to be the case when cedar 

 was worked by the ancient Greeks, and those which 

 Solomon used to grow in Mount Lebanon, the growth 

 of the cedar being too much stimulated by modern 

 methods of planting and treatment, when in old times 

 the trees were of much greater age, and the timber 

 much harder and more durable. 



In the trees I have named a great difference 

 exists as to the time each takes to arrive at perfection, 

 and while a period of eighty years is necessary for 

 the Scotch pine to arrive at its full maturity, the larch 

 can be advantageously used at half that age. This 

 arises from the fact that the larch while young has 

 little or no sap-wood, while the other when young 

 is nearly entirely composed of it. Spruce makes 

 inferior timber to larch, while that of the pineaster 

 and silver fir will vary very much in quality according 

 to the nature of the soil upon which they are grown. 



As adornments to a wild and exposed situation, 

 the trees I have mentioned play a very important 

 part, as well as afford shelter to other trees, which 

 without their aid could not be grown, while they 

 exercise a most useful influence both as shelter for 

 live stock, and for tempering the severity of the 

 climate, and thus improving the quality of grain 

 where it is grown in their neighbourhood, and which 

 enjoys their protection. 



The Pine Tree (Pimis). This genus, the most 

 important of any belonging to the order Conifera, 



