110 ‘ON SEA-SIDE PLANTING. 
‘When I inspected this plantation, it had been formed from five 
to eight years. Life lingered in a plant here and there, but 
none gave any promise of becoming useful wood, except a few 
narrow beltings which covered the slopes along the sides of 
streams. Here the plants stood under very different and 
more favourable circumstances; the sandy subsoil had been 
penetrated and disturbed by the action of water, and pul- 
verized and ameliorated by the influence of the weather. 
The plantation was thus entrenched some thirty or forty feet 
under the ordinary level of the ground; the plants had their 
roots in a congenial soil, and with their tops comparatively 
undisturbed, they grew vigorously, and formed a very 
marked contrast to those on the level surface. 
Of all the plants inserted in this plantation under the 
adverse circumstances already detailed, only two or three 
sorts maintained an appearance of health. The tallest of 
these was the P. pinaster maritima,.distinguished for growing 
in pure sand; yet here, in soil of the opposite description, in 
which sand forms little or no proportion, it had attained the 
heicht of from six to seven feet in that number of years, even 
in the most exposed situations. The other plants were 
varieties of the dwarf pines pumilio and mugho, which do not 
become more than dwarf spreading bushes anywhere; they 
appeared in perfect health. These plants are indigenous to 
the mountains of Central Europe. They are found on the 
Alps beyond the limits of trees, and are seldom met with 
higher than 7500 feet, or lower than 4000 feet of elevation, 
where they prefer a swampy soil. These plants are only of 
use as a change of surface vegetation or shelter for game. In 
this plantation the Scotch fir appeared unusually tender, but 
whether it was raised from the seeds of native forests or from 
seeds imported from the Continent, I was unable to ascertain; 
but its appearance looked like the tender plant of imported 
seed. Instances were to be seen of a few older trees near to 
this plantation, where in the same bare exposure they had 
advanced to the height of fifteen to twenty feet in a short 
stocky form, although standing alone. The kinds'were Scotch 
