TREES FOR WATER CATCHMENT AREAS 125 
a pure plantation, 50 years old in 1911, had 325 trees, 
50 to 60 feet in height, with a volume of 3790 cubic feet 
per acre, or an average annual increment of 76 cubic feet 
per acre (Quarterly Journal of Forestry, v. 350 (1911)). 
At high elevations this tree suffers little from snow, but is 
not so useful as the spruce. It is not usually injured by 
rabbits, and is remarkably free from insect and fungus 
attacks, the only recorded case of disease being an attack of 
Peziza, reported in Quarterly Journal of Forestry, vii. 287. 
It produces heartwood at a late period; but the timber of 
young trees, though all sapwood, is heavy, tough, and 
resinous, and can be used on estates for the same purposes 
as larch. Its wood is very durable, a vinery door made of 
it at Bayfordbury showing no signs of decay after exposure 
to the weather for twenty-two years. Its cylindrical and 
straight stems make it very suitable for pit-wood, and it 
was freely bought for this purpose near Swansea in 1905. 
A remarkable instance of the capacity of this pine for 
producing a large amount of timber on poor dry soil in 
Dorset is given in Trans. Roy. Scot. Arbor. Soc. xxiv. 46 
(1911). Here planted very close (only 14 feet apart), it 
kept the soil moist with a dense layer of humus, and far 
surpassed Scots pine in health and vigour. It succeeds 
remarkably well in the sandy tracts of Surrey. See Gardeners’ 
Chronicle, xliii. 406 (1908). The only objection to the 
extended use of this tree is the difficulty of moving it out 
of the nursery. To obviate this, the seedlings should be 
transplanted at one year old, and be moved every year till 
ready for planting out. 
Austrian Pine.—This is an inferior tree in all respects 
to the Corsican pine, and is of little value in plantations, 
the timber which it produces being coarse, rough, and 
knotty. It is used for shelter belts near the sea-coast and 
on windy exposed hillsides of chalk or limestone. 
Maritime Pine.—This species attains on sandy soil near 
Norwich, where it is mixed in old plantations with Scots 
pine, about the same volume per acre per annum as the 
