118 NATURAL HISTORY OF SCOTCH FIR. 



" Its proper place should have been towards the end of section B, 

 amongst those which constitute a connecting link between that 

 section and the pines of Haguenau (section C, with crowns too ir- 

 regular for comparison with one another), but I have thought that it 

 would be better to keep together all the lots obtained directly from 

 the Russian produce." 



The pine of Tschernigoff is another of these. The lot consists of 

 12 trees, generally good or very good. They come near to the 

 Witepsk pine, and I had, says M. Vilmorin, in my first verifications 

 placed them next in order amongst the elongated pyramidal pines, 

 but their crowns, although remaining regular, having latterly assumed 

 more strength and extension, the tree finds or would find now a more 

 appropriate place amongst the expanded pyramidal shaped pines of 

 which it may be taken as one of the good types. 



Of the pine of Volhynia, he writes : 



" Volhynia being one of the Russian provinces, which, according to 

 information for which I am indebted to M. de la Roquette, furnishes 

 the most beautiful pines for masts. I am delighted to have met 

 personally with a proprietor from that country, M. Camille Petrowski, 

 an enlightened and obliging amateur student of the pine, who has 

 kindly sent to me seeds from the district. 



" The trees raised from these are by far the youngest of those 

 raised from seed received directly from Russia. They have now 

 been but ten years planted, but it may already be foreseen that they 

 will be amongst the best in the collection. In the first years of their 

 growth they presented so striking a resemblance to what had been 

 the appearance of the Riga pines already described when they were of 

 the same age, that I had then no doubt of their being of the same 

 race ; but within the last two or three years they have begun to 

 assume an aspect peculiar to themselves. From having an appear- 

 ance of feebleness and suffering, which they presented at first, they 

 have become extremely vigorous, their leaves have become greatly 

 elongated ; their tint, which was of a pale green, has become on the 

 branches of the year's growth of a decided glaucous shade ; and 

 many, the first crowns of which had been very symmetrical, have 

 produced of late years very vigorous feeders, gourmandes, and this 

 to such an extent as to show a tendency to deform the trunk. 



" I attribute this change to this, that the roots must have passed 

 through the bed of pot clay, which is very near the surface in this 



