IN PRAISE OF PINE- WOODS 77 



upon a strong conviction that the pine countries present 

 real and abiding advantages for modern country life, 

 seems clear from the insistence with which the new- 

 comers cling to the heaths, and refuse the most tempt- 

 ing offers to build outside them. The villas follow 

 the line of the sand as closely as collieries follow the 

 line of the coal. Even the outlying and detached 

 wastes, which, until recently, lay barren and uninhabited 

 among the Surrey hills, or Hampshire commons, are 

 parcelled out and covered with substantial houses ; and 

 there are signs that, before many years, the main tract 

 of the pine country will be converted into one immense 

 residential suburb, composed of houses graded to suit 

 all incomes from 500 a year upwards. 



The extent of the pine country is not so great as 

 to render this surmise improbable. Though it reaches 

 into the three counties of Surrey, Hampshire, and Berk- 

 shire, it covers a very limited area in each. Hampshire 

 and Berkshire are, in the main, chalk soils ; and the 

 area of the Surrey heaths is more than balanced by the 

 Weald, the mixed soils, and the downs. A line drawn 

 from Bracknell, through Ascot, and thence to Wey- 

 bridge, marks the northern limits of the true pine- 

 country, which forms an almost equilateral triangle, 

 with its apex at Liss, on the southern boundary of 

 Woolmer Forest. This portion includes Fleet, Farn- 

 ham, Aldershot, Bisley, Weybridge, Woking, and the 

 Hind Head Commons. South of Liss, the Maeon 

 Valley and the Chalk Downs block the way. Further 

 south, in the " purlieus " of the New Forest, the sand 



