Pinus Sylvestris 583 
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of vigour, I should prefer them, though I would not plant Scots pine as a forest 
tree on any soil where I could get larch to grow even fairly well; and on dry chalk 
and limestone soils it never grows with the vigour that it does on sandy soils. 
Large parts of the open heath of the New Forest, though constantly pastured 
by horses, are becoming overgrown with Scots pine to such an extent that if they 
escape fire it seems as though they would eventually turn those open wastes into 
a more or less dense pine wood.’ But on clay soils, and wherever a rank growth 
of grass, ferns, or briars is found, natural reproduction is comparatively rare, and 
over the whole of the Cotswold Hills I only know of a few places where self-sown 
pines can be seen. 
If natural reproduction is desired, the best way of encouraging it is to uncover 
lines or patches of soil in the winter, on which the seed falling in April can 
germinate; but the growth of these self-sown plants is, as usual with almost all 
natural seedlings, at first much slower than that of planted trees. In very old pine 
woods of 100 to 150 years’ growth, such as are found in Strathspey and in a few 
parts of England, the accumulated carpet of dead pine needles seems to prevent 
the young seedlings from establishing themselves; and in the Belvidere plantation 
at Windsor Park, which is one of the finest in England, I saw no self-sown seedlings 
under the fine old trees, many of which are 100 feet and more in height. 
In such cases it is best to burn the heather or to graze it closely with sheep 
and cattle, and in many cases this is a necessary preliminary to preparing the 
ground for natural reproduction in Scots pine woods; but if the soil produces 
grass rather than heather, the regeneration is always less successful and requires 
more assistance, 
I shall not attempt to give any estimate of the financial results of planting 
Scots pine as an unmixed plantation, because the conditions of soil and climate are so 
varied that any estimates, such as we see commonly given in books on forestry, are 
usually misleading. On very sandy, dry soil it will probably pay as well or better 
than any other tree, because it can be planted so cheaply, and will regenerate itself 
so easily.?. But it must be kept thick enough to clean its stem before the branches 
get large, and in fact it may be better not to thin at all until 20 to 30 years old, 
when the weaker stems which will hardly pay to cut and carry out will be killed by 
their stronger neighbours. On high moorlands also it may be, and now often is, as 
profitable a crop as larch, because it grows well in windy and exposed situations ; 
but I would not plant it, except as a nurse to other trees, on any soil where 
experience has shown that a more valuable tree will grow to fair timber size, and 
the plan often adopted of mixing it in larch plantations on calcareous soil has led 
in many places to absolute failure. 
With regard to the possible yield of Scots pine in England, I have heard of 
nothing better than a part of the Dipton Woods near Hexham, Northumberland, 
the property of Lord Allendale. This was described in Trans. Scott. Arb. Soc. xx. 
1 I was informed during a recent visit to the New Forest that the commoners already complain that the pasture is 
deteriorating from this cause. 
2 I have seen no better example of natural regeneration than on the Duke of Bedford’s property at Old Wavendon 
heath, near Woburn. 
