HISTORICAL SKETCH. 19 



(1) Leaves darker, and turning pale -brown in autumn; shoots 



yellowish and ashy-grey ; cones 1|-1^ in. long, with hard 

 stiff scales : COMMON LARCH. 



(2) Leaves paler and longer, and turning pale-yellow in autumn ; 



shoots light brownish-red ; cones f-1 in. long, with soft 

 scales bent outwards at tip : JAPANESE LARCH. 



II.- EVERGREEN TREES, with small imbricated leaves and monoecious 

 flowers; male catkins with 4 anther -cells to each scale; fruit a 

 small woody globular or oblong cone, with scales arranged op- 

 positely and alternately (CUPRESSINE.S;) : 



A. Twigs round or 4 -seeded ; cones globular; cone- scales with broad 

 hobnail-like tips, and edges not overlapping (Cupressus). 



1. CYPRESS. 



1. Cones dark -brown, ripening in second year, clustered 3 or 4 



together, f to 1 inch in diameter, each with 10 scales : 



LARGE-CONED CYPRESS. 



2. Cones round, and covered with glaucous bloom while young, ripen- 



ing in year of flowering, solitary, terminal, light-brown, about 

 size of a large pea, and usually with 3 seeds under each scale. 



(1) Cones with short stalk, and usually 6 scales : LAWSON'S CYPRESS. 



(2) Cones almost sessile, and usually with 6 or 8 scales ; twigs with 



4 more or less pronounced ridges : NOOTKA CYPRESS. 



B. Twigs flattened, and leaves broader than in the Cypresses; cones 



small, pale reddish-brown, oval, tapering to both ends, solitary 



and terminal ; cone - scales with edges slightly overlapping 



(Thuja) . . i' V 2 * THUJA OR KED CEDAR. 



Historical. The British Isles were probably at one time 

 mainly covered with primeval woods, most of which were likely 

 destroyed by fire ; and wherever the Scots Pine, our only 

 indigenous conifer timber-tree, was the chief tree in mountainous 

 tracts, such fires left the hillsides bare and barren, as Pines 

 cannot reproduce themselves by stool-shoots or suckers, like 

 broad-leaved trees. In the history of Forestry in Britain three 

 main periods are easily distinguishable : (1) up to 1482, when 

 the Statute of Enclosure was passed ; (2) from 1482 to 1866, 

 when the import duty was taken off foreign timber ; and (3) 

 from 1866 up to the present time, when State Afforestation on 

 a large scale is receiving attention. 



