On the Scotch Pine. 141 



belt should not be straight, but undulating and festooned, 

 according to the form of the hills, and feathering down into 

 the glens. 



I do not approve of planting merely the tops of hills any 

 more than Sir Walter, who, in his fine picturesque language, 

 calls it a lady's cap stuck on the crown of her head, leaving 

 all below naked; but Sir Walter has erred on the opposite 

 extreme, in dressing the lady's bosom, certainly very taste- 

 fully, while her head appears above, as bald as " the Marquis 

 of Granby's on a signpost ! " But this is not what I wished 

 to talk about. What I wished to say was in vindication of 

 Sir Walter Scott's rather paradoxical observation respecting 

 the pine, where he says, " it will grow as well on bad or un- 

 cultivated land as on good or well cultivated, after the first 

 few years." Now this, though strange, is not only true, but 

 the fact is, that it grows the best timber on the very worst land ! 

 The reason why the Scotch pine is useless in England is be- 

 cause the soil and climate are too good for it ! I saw beautiful 

 thriving plantations in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, planted in 

 what are called lazy beds ; not that the soil was too wet, but 

 because there w-as not soil sufficient to plant any thing in, 

 without collecting it into heaps or ridges from among the 

 rocks of which the hilly surface was composed. These trees 

 reminded me of Sir W^alter's beautiful song in the Lady of 

 the Lake : — 



" Ours is no sapling, chance sown by the fountain. 

 Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade; 

 ^yhen the whirlwind has stripp'd every leaf on the mountain. 

 The more shall Clan Alpine rejoice in her shade. 

 Moor'd in the rifted rock. 

 Proof 'gainst the tempest's shock, 

 Fii'mer he roots him the fiercer it blows." 



What encouragement is here for gentlemen to plant their 

 wastes and barren hills in England ! and what a pity it is to 

 plant good pastures or tillage land with the " villanous Scotch 

 pines." Howbeit, I know of no tree so useful for shelter and 

 shade, either for fields or as a nurse for other or better trees. 

 It is also very ornamental on mountain sides or tops of hills, 

 feathering down among deciduous trees in exposed situations. 

 The beauty of the pine is, that it will grow in almost any 

 soil, or almost no soil. Its roots run on the surface almost 

 like a peach tree against a wall, and are nourished by the 

 shelter and shade of its own foliage ; which dropping annually 

 soon forms a strata of earth sufficient to cover its largest roots, 

 and even to produce good pasturage for cattle. A double row 

 of Scotch pines, planted in triangles, will become a formidable 



