THE PINE. 409 



really congenial and adapted to the habit and nature 

 of the tree, and where plants of a good variety and from 

 seed of the true native Pine are selected, that, under such 

 circumstances, the timber, if allowed to attain maturity, 

 that is one hundred years 1 growth or upwards, would 

 be little, if at all, inferior to that grown in the highland 

 or foreign native forests. Upon soils unsuited to its habit, 

 but such as are very frequently selected for the sites of 

 plantations, we admit that it never can arrive at such 

 perfection, inasmuch as the conditions are then wanting 

 to effect the maturation or proper conversion of the fibre 

 into heart-wood. 



In Scotland many examples of plantation fir, when 

 allowed to obtain a proper age, have been found to pro- 

 duce timber in every respect similar and equal to the 

 native tree, and even, in some parts of England, the 

 common Pine, when aged and matured, has been pro- 

 nounced, by a planter and manager of timber of high 

 and deserved repute,* to be equal, in point of strength 

 and durability, to any foreign deal whatever. 



The wood of the Pine, in its matured state, varies in 

 colour from a yellowish to a brownish red, and it is ob- 

 served that logs of the deepest tint are harder, firmer, 

 and more durable than those of a paler colour, the former 

 possessing more of the inspissated resinous deposit than 

 the latter. Slowness of groAvth is considered to be one 

 of the requisites necessary to produce the best Pine 

 timber, but, though this may be affirmed as generally 

 correct, where hardness, density, and strength are looked 

 to, it has its exceptions, and logs of slow or small growth 

 are not unfrequently met with inferior in strength and 



* Mr. Thomas Davis. See a paper by this gentleman in the M Transactions of 

 the Society of Arts," vol. xvi. 



