CHAPTER IX. 



Natural History and General Culture op the Sootoh Fir in 

 France. 



Op the trees spoken of as cultivated on the sand-wastes of France, 

 the principal are the maritime pine (pt/ms maritima), and the Scotch 

 fir (pinus sylvestris), the former on the new dunes and drift sands of 

 the coast, the latter on the more consolidated old sand-wastes of the 

 tertiary formation in the interior of the country. Besides these have 

 been mentioned several varieties of the oak, the birch, and the 

 chestnut, as grown on spots of greater or lesser extent within these 

 sand-wastes ; and in other countries a much greater variety of trees 

 are raised upon sands and sandy soil. But it is the pine plantations 

 alone of which this volume treats. 



Mention has also been made of the modern system of forest 

 management having been adopted in France ; the Fachwerke Methode 

 of Hartig and Cotta, known in France as La methode des co7n2mrtiments, 

 whereby are secured in combination a sustained production of 

 material by the forest, a progressive improvement of the state of the 

 forest, and a natural reproduction of it from self-sown seed. As this 

 method of forest management, now practised generally on the continent 

 of Europe, and of late years inti'oduced into the management of 

 forests in the Indian Empire, differs entirely from the system known 

 as Jardinage, followed in some of our colonies, and in what are called 

 policies in Britain, and from the method a tire et aire, previously 

 practised in France, resembling in some respects the method adopted 

 with plantations of coniferous trees in Scotland, the following details 

 are given in view of its application to the different species of pine 

 trees grown on the sand -wastes of France. 



And on the assumption that it may be more acceptable to my 

 readers, as well as in more perfect keeping with all besides advanced 

 in the volume, that I should give the natural history of the trees 

 mentioned as this is given in France than as it is given elsewhere, 

 I shall follow this course. 



Of the Pinus SyliKstris, the Pin Sylvestre of France, M M., Lorentz, 

 and Parade, wrote in a volume entitled, Cours Hementaire de culture 



