E FORESTER. 



VOL. VI. 



APRIL, 1900. 



No. 4. 



The Pine Forest of Ravenna. 



Passing of the Historic Forest in the Delta of the River Po, Italy. 



BY THE FOUNDER OF THE FORESTER. 



La Pineta or the Pine Forest of Ravenna 

 is perhaps the most famous forest of all the 

 world. This is due more to its historic as- 

 sociations than to its beauty. It was men- 

 tioned fourteen centuries ago in the time of 

 Odoacer and Theodoric. It was extolled 

 by Dante, Boccaccio, Dryden and Byron. 

 In Don Juan, Canto III., Stanza CV., 

 Lord Byron speaks of it as follows : 



" Sweet hour of twilight ! in the solitude 

 Of the pine forest, and the silent shore 

 Which bounds Ravenna's immortal wood, 

 Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, 

 To where the last Csesarean fortress stood, 

 Evergreen forest ! which Boccaccio's lore 

 And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me 

 How have I loved the twilight hour and thee !" 



Ravenna was once, it is said, located on 

 the sea. Now it is several miles inland. 

 The forest is located on a spit of sandy 

 land along the Adriatic. The soil on 

 which this forest is located was, no doubt, 

 once an island or beach similar to the Lido 

 in front of Venice. Ravenna is in the 

 Delta of the Po, and the sediment filled 

 the lagoon between the sandspit and the 

 mainland. Now the city is connected 

 with the sea by means of canals which 

 drain the rice-fields between the city and 

 the forest. 



The forest as shown in the illustration 

 by the bridge will never be seen again in 

 such form. The severe winter of i8So-Si 

 and conflagrations have destroyed most of 



it. The forest consists of Pinus pinea 

 (literally " Pine of Pines ") . This tree is 

 a native of the Mediterranean region and 

 cannot endure much cold, although in 

 sunny Italy it is often freezing, and in 

 April of last year in Venice the black 

 gondolas were white with snow. 



This suggests an interesting question. 

 Pines are usually regarded as trees of the 

 temperate zone, but there is a species 

 which cannot endure a slight freeze. The 

 same is true, to a certain extent, of Pinus 

 maritima and Pinus heterophylla. The 

 latter grows only along our Gulf Coast, in 

 Cuba and Honduras. The Island of New 

 Providence, on which Nassau, the capital 

 of the Bahamas, is located is covered with 

 Pinus Bahamensis. In this region frost 

 never occurs. Perhaps many species of 

 Pines will grow well in tropical regions, 

 but owing to the richness of the soil are 

 soon crowded out by the luxuriant growth 

 of broad-leaved species. 



Just north of Ravenna is the great delta 

 of the Po, in the center of which is the 

 famous " Lago di Comacchio," a lagoon 

 30,000 hectares in extent where piscicul- 

 ture has been successfully practised for 

 many centuries. 



Ravenna is easily reached by rail from 

 Ferrara the latter city is now but a 

 shadow of its former self. When I vis- 

 ited there, men and women were husv 

 pulling out the grass which persisted in 



