Pinus Sylvestris 593 



drained. These trees, planted 3|- feet apart, are now forty-four years old and average 

 44 feet in height by 3 feet in girth. Two-year-old seedlings, one year transplanted, 

 were used and a system of pitting was adopted. The holes were made about a foot 

 deep, and were filled in with a mixture of clay and peat. The clay was brought from 

 a distance, and no doubt its use added considerably to the cost of planting. Possibly 

 peat-ashes, obtained by burning peat, heather, etc. on the spot would have answered 

 equally well, and been less costly. The Scots pine succeeds better than any other 

 tree on pure peat-moss, though alder and larch may be added in a certain proportion. 

 At Clonbrock, in Co. Mayo, on an overcut bog, where the peat left uncut was 3 to 

 4 feet deep, Scots pine eighty years old averages only 47 feet in height by 4 feet in 

 girth. Probably the lesser growth in this case is due to insufficient drainage. As 

 there are immense areas of peat-mosses in Ireland, now yielding no return whatever, 

 the possibility of afforesting them with Scots pine, or with a mixture of Scots pine 

 and larch, is an important question ; and the success of the Churchill plantations is 

 encouraging.^ 



Throughout Ireland there are extensive mountain tracts of barren land, covered 

 with stones and rocks, which are of merely nominal value for grazing and are im- 

 possible to reclaim for agricultural purposes except at a ruinous expenditure. The 

 Scots pine renders excellent service in turning these wastes to account. The late 

 Lord Powerscourt made extensive plantations on the hill-sides of Co. Wicklow at 500 

 to 900 feet above sea-level, which paid handsomely. These plantations consisted in 

 the main of a mixture as follows: 200 larch, 1500 Scots fir, and 500 spruce per 

 acre, the plants being notched in, as, in Lord Powerscourt's opinion, they came on 

 eventually as well as those which had been pitted at a much greater expense. The 

 Scots fir have been gradually thinned out, the larch being left as the final crop. Lord 

 Powerscourt was favoured by ready access to the sea, and by proximity to Wales, 

 where his thinnings were readily sold as pit-props. He estimated that the initial 

 cost of planting and fencing is 4 to /^^ per acre, and that, during the first twenty to 

 twenty-five years, the thinnings pay for the expense of cutting and the interest on 

 the first cost. After that the thinnings should bring in annually eight shillings an 

 acre ; the final crop of larch at fifty years being probably worth about ;;^50 an acre. 



(A. H.) 



In the United States the Scots pine has been planted with more or less success, 

 but does not seem likely to be as valuable for timber ;as the native pines. The 

 largest I saw was in the Wellesley Arboretum, near Boston, which was 49 feet high 

 in 1904. In Professor Sargent's grounds it seems to be short-lived, only living for 

 thirty to forty years. Ten miles from Boston, however, near Ponkapoag, it succeeds 

 better on dry sandy soil, and I found some self-sown seedlings. At the Central 

 Experimental Farm, near Ottawa, trees planted in 1888 were about 30 feet high in 

 1906, but Mr. W. T. Macoun^ reports that it suffers much from shade, and does not 

 grow so fast as Norway spruce or European larch ; though he recommends it for 

 nurses to other trees, and for producing fuel. 



' The plantations on bog land at Knockboy, Co. Galway, were badly made, and turned out a disastrous failure. Cf. 

 Dr. Schlich's report in /Tew Bull. 1903, p. 22 ; and in Trans. Koy. Scot. Arbor. Soc. xvi. pt. ii. 249 (1901). 

 ' Canadian Forestry Journal, iii. 77 (1907). 



