582 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



the most celebrated for masts and shipbuilding purposes, and has been found in 

 France to be the best variety in cultivation, we may refer our readers to a recent 

 publication by Von Sivers,^ with a map of the distribution of pine and spruce, which 

 shows a comparatively small area of the former. The author states that though the 

 pine is everywhere at home, it grows best on sand, especially where that is underlaid 

 by good soil, and that in favourable places it reaches often a height of 150 feet. 

 The area which is occupied by pine plantations in Estland, Livland, and Kurland is 

 estimated at 638 square kilometres. It would, therefore, seem that the production 

 of pine timber is not sufficient to continue the large export upon which in the past 

 reliance could be placed. And though there are still large reserves of pine forest in 

 Northern Sweden and Finland, yet it was stated by Mr. A. Howard at a recent meeting 

 of the Society of Arts, in a discussion on Sir Herbert Maxwell's paper on Forestry, 

 that the size of the deals imported from the Baltic is steadily diminishing, and that 

 a much smaller proportion of 11 -inch boards is now sent than was formerly the case. 

 In the forests of the lower valleys of the Altai Mountains in Siberia I have 

 seen the pine attain a greater size than anywhere in Europe, some trees in the 

 valley of the Biya river, a tributary of the Ob, which I observed in 1899, being 

 estimated at 150 to 160 feet in height, and clean to 100 feet, at which height they 

 looked as if they were 5 or 6 feet in girth.* 



Cultivation ' 



Of all the many species of pine, none is so widely distributed in Europe, so 

 common all over Great Britain, so easy to grow as the Scots pine, or Scotch fir, 

 as it is often incorrectly called. Its vigorous constitution and rapid growth when 

 young enables it to exist and even to thrive in almost all situations, and though 

 the variations which it has produced in a wild as well as in a cultivated state are 

 innumerable, yet the most casual observer can hardly fail to distinguish it from any 

 other species which is likely to be seen in cultivation. I have seen the tree in the 

 greatest perfection on the sandy soils of Surrey, Sussex, Bedfordshire, and Notts, on 

 the rich loams of the south-western and midland counties, on the dry sandy glacial 

 deposits and heath-clad hills of the Highlands, and in many parts of Europe. 



Whether the Scots pine was at first principally propagated in England from 

 native Scotch seed or from German seed is doubtful, and probably the earliest planted 

 trees came from various sources ; but so far as my experiments have gone, it seems 

 as though the seedlings grown from acclimatised trees are now more flourishing, 

 and grow faster in the south of England than those from German, Highland, or 

 Scandinavian seed. I have tried plants of the same age from all these sources in 

 Gloucestershire, and have found those sent me from the New Forest the most 

 promising in their younger stages. If rapidity of growth at first is any indication 



* Die Forstlichen Verhdltnisse der Baltischen Prffvinzen, Riga, 1 903. 



' Farther east, near Krasnoyarsk, a pine has been measured, which at 200 years old was 40 archines (93 feet) high, and 

 11 verschoks (19J inches) in diameter ; but this is far surpassed by the pines found near Belovege, where trees 150 years old 

 are said to measure 60 archines (1 40 feet) high by 12 verschoks (21 inches) in diameter, and contain as much as 100 

 sagines (about 25O cubic feet) of timber. Cf. Les Forels de la Russie, Paris Exp. 1900. 



3 Loudon's excellent account of the culture should also be referred to, pp. 2178-2183. 



