CONIFER. 265 
naturalised in sandy and gravelly districts in England; in Surrey, and 
more especially in the Poole basin. 
[England,] Scotland, Ireland (?). Tree. Early Summer. 
A tall tree, pyramidal when young, when old with a flat-topped 
spreading head. Bark greyish-red, at length fissured, and finally easily 
breaking off in flakes. Ultimate branches rather slender, reddish 
ash-coloured, tortuous. Leaves very numerous, persistent, 1 to 3 
inches long, very slightly glaucous, the pair in each fascicle enveloped 
at the base in numerous scarious scales with filamentous-laciniate 
margins. Male catkins about } inch long, aggregated in a spike, 
terminated by a bud, which grows out into a barren shoot. Mature 
cones 1 to 14 inch long in the wild specimens of the Mar Forest, 
greenish ash-colour, at length ash-colour, with rather few scales, which 
increase in length towards the apex; escutcheon of the largest scales 
little more than } inch across each diagonal. Seeds, including the 
wing, about } inch long. 
Scotch Fir. 
French, Pin sawage. German, Kiefer, Fohre. 
This fine tree is the British representative of a large group of plants, and is second 
in utility only to the oak. It grows, under fayourable circumstances, to a great size, 
attaining a height of from seventy to a hundred feet, the trunk having a diameter of 
four or five feet. There are but few of these gigantic pines now left standing in the 
Highland forests in which they grew; most of them have been felled of late years 
for their valuable timber. One of the most extensive woods in the island, called the 
Forest of Glenmore, belonging to the Duke of Richmond, was cut down in the early 
part of the present century, and sold for 10,0007. Of this timber forty-one ships 
were built at the mouth of the Spey, of an aggregate burden of ninteen thousand tons. 
A plank cut from one of the finest trees in this noble forest, measured five feet five 
inches in diameter. The soil in the Highland forests is found to be of very different 
qualities, which regulates the quality of the timber. The richest ground produces 
the largest trees, consequently not such fine-grained wood as in those trees grown on 
sandy and poorer soil. The Scotch pine or fir generally reaches its full growth in 
from 150 to 250 years: after that period it becomes decayed ; and in soils unsuited 
to its growth ceases to increase at a much earlier period. The most extensive forest in 
Scotland was the Rothiemurchus Forest, containing above sixteen square miles. It was 
united with the Forest of Glenmore, so as to form one continuous forest; but the high 
price of timber hastened its destruction, and after yielding a handsome revenue to its 
owner, there are now but few trees left where once some of the most magnificent 
specimens of the pine grew. The Braemar and Invercauld Forests still stand almost 
entire, and some splendid trees are to be found in them. Sir. T. D. Lander says, “It 
is curious to observe in the Rothiemurchus Forest, and in all others, how the work or 
renovation goes on. The young seedlings come up as thick as they do in tha 
nurseryman’s seed-beds, and in the same reiative degree of thickness do they continue 
to grow, till they are old enough to be cut down. The competition which takes 
place between the adjacent plants creates a rivalry that increases their upward 
growth ; whilst the exclusion of the air prevents the formation of lateral branches, or 
destroys them soon after they are formed. Thus nature produces by far the most 
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