38 The greater evergreen trees 



any woodland work, nor should any merely curious 

 conifer, and many absurdities are described in cata- 

 logues serving to obscure the value of the really noble 

 Pines. 



Design. It is important to get out of our heads skimpy 

 ideas of planting, wrong in effect for shelter, timber, and 

 simplicity of working. North or south, east or west, we 

 often see that, if any planting of evergreen trees is done 

 at all, it is done in narrow skirtings to roads, so that the 

 winds cut through the line in an instant, whereas when 

 trees are massed rightly the edge of the wood impedes 

 the prevailing wind, and within fifty yards the trees are 

 in shelter and warmth. The best way to plant is to take 

 a piece of ground which is not valuable for arable or 

 any other use, and plant it as wood. If, as often occurs, 

 there are few or no evergreen trees among the hard- 

 wood trees of the place, it is all the better if we can 

 place an evergreen wood in the midst of Oak and like 

 woods ; birds can get more protection in such woods, 

 as in estates with hard woods only it is too easy for the 

 poacher to see the pheasants clear against the sky on 

 the leafless trees. All planting of these trees should be 

 in masses, bold groups or ' clouds ' on the hills. It is 

 not a question of space ; an acre or two rightly planted 

 would be better than miles of the mean skirtings to 

 roads called ' plantations ', and the ugly round clumps 

 with which so many country places are disfigured. 



The following are the greater trees for the evergreen 

 wood for our islands. It should be understood that the 

 trees are considered wholly from the point of view of 

 the planter in Britain. 



The Corsican Pine. The tallest Pine of Europe, reach- 

 ing i6o feet high in Calabria and Corsica, and of very 



