124 rOEESTS, WOODS, AND TREES 



acre. Another plot on poor but deep sandy soil, with some 

 iron pan, on the Gay wood, Estate, King's Lynn, 91 years old, 

 216 trees per acre, 65 feet high, contained 4733 cubic 

 feet (quarter girth measurement under bark), equal to an 

 average annual increment of 5 2 cubic feet per acre. 



Corsican Pine. — This species is a much more vigorous 

 tree than Scots pine in most parts of the British Isles. On 

 the sandy heaths of Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, and Dorset 

 it produces a considerably larger volume of timber, probably 

 as much as 90 cubic feet per acre per annum, for the first 

 forty years on the best sites. It grows freely in dry situa- 

 tions and on soil containing lime, and even succeeds on clay. 

 It bears drought well, thriving on a grassy hill with a south 

 exposure in Somerset, where beech and larch had died. 

 This is due to the thick layer of humus produced by the 

 leaf-fall of this pine, which keeps the soil cool and moist. 

 Having a deep root-system it is very storm-firm, and 

 resisted better than any other conifer the gale of December 

 1913, when over a million trees were blown down in 

 Perthshire and Forfarshire. It bears the constant prevail- 

 ing wind well, and on this account is valuable for planting 

 in shelter belts near the sea and in hilly districts. Cor- 

 sican pine succeeded better on sand-dunes at Holkham, 

 Norfolk, than any other species, producing natural seedlings 

 in great abundance, many of which are now as tall as the 

 parent trees, attaining 30 to 35 feet in height in twenty 

 years. The tree helps materially in defence against sea- 

 erosion. See Quarterly Journal of Forestry, ii. 107 (1908). 

 Corsican pine also proved much more successful than Scots 

 pine on the sand-dunes at Culbin, Morayshire, " owing to 

 its adaptability for growing on sand and to its power of 

 resisting wind." See Trans. Boy. Scot. Arhor. Soc. xxix. 

 25 (1915). 



Plantations of Corsican pine on exposed sites in Wig- 

 townshire and in Wales produce a considerable volume of 

 timber, the height growth being about 50 feet at the end 

 of forty years. On the Healey Estate, Northumberland, 



