2176 ARBORETUM AND FHUTICETUM. PART 111. 



pine; the diversity of which may be partly owing to the great extent to which 

 the tree has been planted in almost every part of the low country of Britain ; 

 and the great difference between the tree in these plantations, and in its 

 native habitats, in hilly or mountainous scenery. Even the difference be- 

 tween the tree standing alone or in small groups, and growing in extensive 

 plantations, is so great, that it can hardly be recognised by a general observer 

 to be the same species of tree. In close plantations, which have never been 

 thinned, the trees assume, after a certain number of years, a gloomy sameness 

 of appearance ; and, where these are planted in belts, as they often are, along 

 a public road, " daylight may be seen for miles through their naked stems, 

 chilled and contracted as they are with the cold." The timber, also, of trees 

 grown in the ferule soils of the low country, which have been cut down, being 

 so much less strong and durable than Highland or foreign wood of the same 

 kind, is another cause of the tree having got into bad repute, though the 

 great objection to it is its appearance. Mason says, 



" The Scottish fir, in murky file, 

 Rears his inglorious head, and blots the fair horizon." 



The great contempt in which the Scotch fir is commonly held, says 

 Gilpin, " arises, I believe, from two causes. People object, first, to its colour : 

 its dark murky hue is unpleasing. With regard to colour in general, I think 

 I speak the language of painting, when I assert that the picturesque eye 

 makes little distinction in this matter. It has no attachment to one colour 

 in preference to another, but considers the beauty of all colouring as result- 

 ing, not from the colours themselves, but almost entirely from the harmony 

 with other colours in their neighbourhood. So that, as the fir tree is sup- 

 ported, combined, or stationed, it forms a beautiful umbrage, or a murky spot. 

 A second source of that contempt in which the Scotch fir is commonly held 

 is, our rarely seeing it in a picturesque state. Scotch firs are seldom planted 

 as single trees, or in a judicious group; but generally in close compact bodies, 

 in thick array, which suffocates or cramps them; and, if they ever get loose 

 from this bondage, they are already ruined. Their lateral branches are gone, 

 and their stems are drawn into poles, on which their heads appear stuck as 

 on a centre. Whereas, if the tree had grown in its natural state, all mischief 

 had been prevented : its stem would have taken an easy sweep, and its 

 lateral branches, which naturally grow with almost as much beautiful irregu- 

 larity as those of deciduous trees, would have hung loosely and negligently ; 

 and the more so, as there is something peculiarly light and feathery in its 

 foliage. I mean not to assert that every Scotch fir, though in a natural 

 state, would possess these beauties ; but it would at least have the chance 

 of other trees ; and I have seen it, though, indeed, but rarely, in such a 

 state as to equal in beauty the most elegant stone pine. All trees, indeed, 

 crowded together, naturally rise in perpendicular steins ; but the fir has 

 this peculiar disadvantage, that its lateral branches, once injured, never 

 shoot again. A grove of crowded saplings, elms, beeches, or almost any 

 deciduous trees, when thinned, will throw out new lateral branches, and 

 in time, recover a state of beauty ; but, if the education of the fir has been 

 neglected, he is lost for ever." (For. Seen., i. p. 91.) 



The Scotch fir, in perfection, continues Gilpin, *' I think a very fine tree, 

 though we have little idea of its beauty ; and it is generally treated with great 

 contempt. It is a hardy plant, and is therefore put to every servile office. If 

 you wish to screen your house from the south-west wind, plant Scotch firs, 

 and plant them close and thick. If you want to shelter a nursery of young 

 trees, plant Scotch firs ; and the phrase is, you may afterwards weed them 

 out as you please. This is ignominious. 1 wish not to rob society of these 

 hardy services from the Scotch fir ; nor do I mean to set it in competition 

 with many trees of the forest, which, in their infant state, it is accustomed to 

 shelter : all I mean is, to rescue it from the disgrace of being thought fit for 

 nothing else, and to establish its character as a picturesque tree. For 

 myself, I admire its foliage, both the colour of the leaf, and its mode of 



