ON SELECTING NURSERY PLANTS, 49 
severe winter. These plants abound in British nurseries. 
The seeds are obtained at a cheap rate, labour throughout 
the Continent, the principal expense attending them, being far 
cheaper than in this country. Plants from Continental seeds 
succeed only in well-sheltered ground at a low altitude. On 
elevated and exposed moorland they are worthless. Unless 
frequently transplanted in the nursery, they are barer in the 
roots than the native plant, and consequently more apt to die 
in being transplanted ; and where they have taken root and 
lived for a few years, I have seen them in moors standing 
about knee height in the first of summer, brown, of a scorched 
appearance, and twiggy, being topped by frost, and worse 
than nothing in the ground. 
Pinus sylvestris montana is another variety of Scotch pine 
which is imported from the Continent, and grown in this 
country under that name. The plants of this tree have a 
close resemblance to those of the native pine while a plant, 
which is apt to lead to a serious mistake, as the J/ontana of 
the Continent, which is introduced and propagated to a véry 
great extent, is a dwarf—worthless as a timber tree, as at most 
it only becomes a spreading bush. With respect to this 
plant the confusion is the more perplexing, as Don, in his 
writings on the native varieties found in Scotland, has given 
the name Montana to a valuable variety of the Scotch pine, 
which differs widely from that which has of late years to an 
unusual extent found its way to the nurseries. 
The Afontana of commerce, though imported from the Conti- 
nent, is a very hardy plant, owing to its seeds being gathered 
from the tree in its native habitat, which is always at a great 
elevation. Unlike the loftier sorts of Pinus sylvestris, it is 
unsuited for profitable cultivation in the warm plains of 
foreign countries. The plants should be avoided for all 
plantations in the course of being formed for the sake of 
timber. Yet I have known this dwarf inserted with great 
care, extensively, ten to twelve feet apart, with the view of 
ultimately suppressing all the other plants associated with it 
in the forest.—(For further particulars see PINE-TREE.) 
D 
