381 



apple, the greater softness of the wood of the latter, will be found not 

 less striking to every arboriculturist. 



Further : The common oak in Italy and Spain, where it grows faster 

 than in Britain, is ascertained to be of shorter duration, in those coun- 

 tries. In the same way, the oak in the highland mountains of Scotland 

 or Wales, is of a much harder and closer grain, and therefore more du- 

 rable, than what is found in England; though on such mountains it 

 seldom rises to the fifth part, or less, of the English tree. Every car- 

 penter in Scotland knows the extraordinary difference between the 

 durability of Highland oak, and oak usually imported from England, 

 for the spokes of wheels. Every extensive timber-dealer is aware of 

 the superior hardness of oak, raised in Cumberland and Yorkshire, over 

 that of IMonmouthshire and Herefordshire ; and such a dealer, in select- 

 ing trees in the same woods in any distrct, will always give the prefer- 

 ence to oak of slow growth, and found on cold and clayey soils, and to 

 ash on rocky cliffs ; which he knows to be the soils and climates natural 

 to both. If he take a cubic foot of park-oak, and another of forest- 

 oak, and weigh the one against the other (or if he do the like with ash 

 and elm of the same descriptions), the latter will uniformly turn out the 

 heavier of the two. 



As an analogous case, I may refer to some facts collected by Lambert 

 (no mean authority), respecting the Scotch fir [Pinus stives tris). He 

 says, that it does not stand longer than forty or fifty years on the rich 

 and fertile land in both England and Scotland, where it is often planted, 

 and where it rushes up vdth extraordinary rapidity. In the northern 

 districts of Scotland, on the other hand (a thing well known to myself), 

 the difference between park fir and highland-fir is universally known and 

 admitted ; and the superiority of the latter is proved, by its existence in 

 buildings of great antiquity, where it is still found in a sound state ; a 

 difference, which can be ascribed to no other cause than the mountainous 

 situations (that is, the natural state), in which the former timber is pro- 

 duced, and "where the trees being of slower growth, the wood is 

 consequently of a harder texture." — Monogr. on the Gen. Pin. p. 34. 



To the above I may add a circumstance connected with the larch, 

 another tree possessing a dense, hard, and durable fibre in its natural 

 state. A friend of mine had some trees of this species, which had 

 grown nearly fifty years, in a deep rich loam, close to some cottages 

 and cabbage-gardens, where they had amply shared in the benefit of 

 culture from the latter. Wlien felled, the wood was soft and porous. 

 It turned out of no duration, when cut up into floors and field-gates ; 

 and it was even found to burn as tolerable fire-wood, which larch of 



