TREES FOR WATER CATCHMENT AREAS 125 



a pure plantation, 50 years old in 1911, had 325 trees, 

 50 to 60 feet in height, with a volume of 3790 cubic feet 

 per acre, or an average annual increment of 76 cubic feet 

 per acre {Quarterly Journal of Forestry, v. 350 (1911)). 

 At high elevations this tree suffers little from snow, but is 

 not so useful as the spruce. It is not usually injured by 

 rabbits, and is remarkably free from insect and fungus 

 attacks, the only recorded case of disease being an attack of 

 Peziza, reported in Quarterly Journal of Forestry, vii. 287. 

 It produces heartwood at a late period ; but the timber of 

 young trees, though all sapwood, is heavy, tough, and 

 resinous, and can be used on estates for the same purposes 

 as larch. Its wood is very durable, a vinery door made of 

 it at Bayfordbury showing no signs of decay after exposure 

 to the weather for twenty-two years. Its cylindrical and 

 straight stems make it very suitable for pit-wood, and it 

 was freely bought for this purpose near Swansea in 1905. 



A remarkable instance of the capacity of this pine for 

 producing a large amount of timber on poor dry soil in 

 Dorset is given in Trans. Roy. Scot. Arbor. Soc. xxiv. 46 

 (1911). Here planted very close (only 1|- feet apart), it 

 kept the soil moist with a dense layer of humus, and far 

 surpassed Scots pine in health and vigour. It succeeds 

 remarkably well in the sandy tracts of Surrey. See Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, xliii. 406 (1908). The only objection to the 

 extended use of this tree is the difficulty of moving it out 

 of the nursery. To obviate this, the seedlings should be 

 transplanted at one year old, and be moved every year till 

 ready for planting out. 



Austrian Pine. — This is an inferior tree in all respects 

 to the Corsican pine, and is of little value in plantations, 

 the timber which it produces being coarse, rough, and 

 knotty. It is used for shelter belts near the sea-coast and 

 on windy exposed hillsides of chalk or limestone. 



Maritime Pine. — This species attains on sandy soil near 

 Norwich, where it is mixed in old plantations with Scots 

 pine, about the same volume per acre per annum as the 



