1032 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Sir Herbert Maxwell reports' a very large tree at Dunkeld, 13 ft. 3 in. in girth. 

 At Keir, Perthshire, there is a tree 59 ft. by 6 ft. 11 in., which was reported' at 

 the Conifer Conference in 1891 to be 40 years old, and 46 ft. by 6 ft. 



In Ireland, there are two fine old trees, both about 80 ft. by 7^ ft., at Wood- 

 stock ; and a tree at Muckross, Kerry, was in 1908 about 65 ft. high, and 8 ft. in 

 girth. Another at Coolattin, Wicklow, was 73 ft. by 7 ft. 7 in. in 1906; but 

 the forester here reported that larger trees were to be found on this property, where 

 this species thrives, and produces valuable timber. 



Timber 



The wood of the white pine is, in Sargent's words," " light, soft, not strong, 

 close, straight-grained, very resinous, easily worked, light brown, often tinged with 

 red, with thin, nearly white sapwood, weighing only 24 pounds to the cubic foot 



when quite dry." 



For a century or more it has played a conspicuous part in the material develop- 

 ment of the United States and Canada. " Great fleets of ships and long railroads 

 have been built to transport the lumber sawn from its mighty trunks, men have 

 grown rich by destroying it, building cities to supply the needs of their traffic, and 

 seeing them languish as the forests disappear." Fifty years ago the supply seemed 

 inexhaustible, and for a long period the price of white pine lumber governed that of 

 most other woods, whilst it formed a basis of comparison for the quality of other 

 kinds of trees. 



Now the best sources of supply are so much depleted that though, in Michaux's 

 time, three-quarters of the houses, except in the great cities, were built mainly of 

 white pine, it has become so scarce and risen so much in price that Canadian forests 

 are largely purchased by American lumbermen to supply their own needs, and the 

 export to Europe has very much diminished. 



Much of what still comes is moreover cut from smaller and younger trees, often 

 of second growth, and is inferior in quality to that which gave its reputation, and 

 which was preferred to all others on account of the facility with which it worked 

 up for all domestic purposes.* 



Laslett, as timber inspector to the British navy at a time when ships were still 

 built of wood, gives numerous details ^ of the experiments which were made on its 

 strength, elasticity, and durability, and states that it was used for masts, yards, bow- 

 sprits, and in the form of deals, but says it was not strong enough for light spars 

 subject to great and sudden strains, for which it was inferior in strength and 

 durability to Oregon fir. 



Mr. Weale of Liverpool writes to me as follows : — " It is the most generally 

 useful of all the pines, and is largely exported to Europe. As a building timber it is 



' Memories of the Months, 3rd series. 



2 Erroneously named P. Lambertiana, \i\ Joum. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 531 {1892). 



3 Silva^ xi. 19 (1897). ■> Popular Science Monthly, xxviii. 682. 



* Timber and Timber Trees, 356-66 (1894). 



