162 THE PINE TREE. 
which plants have been grown very extensively throughout 
Scotland. These plants are utterly worthless, except in the 
most favourable situations. In the most sheltered nursery- 
ground they seldom survive the second winter without show- 
ing the influence of frost; and unless protected in early 
winter, they generally become quite brown by the spring of 
the year, and unsaleable. This is a fact well known to Scotch 
nurserymen, and to many in England, whose nursery grounds 
stand elevated and exposed. The difference between the 
plants of the native Scotch pine and the Continental P. sylves- 
tris is quite perceptible when one year old, but much more so 
at the age of two years; then the two sorts brought into 
view on elevated ground standing side by side could readily 
be distinguished at a mile’s distance, so great generally is the 
contrast in colour: the foreigner has a dead and withered 
appearance, while the native plant stands green and scathless. 
Plants from imported seed have also the disadvantage of - 
forming bare roots, and are, on that account, more difficult to 
transplant in safety ; therefore to treat the plant skilfully, it 
should be transplanted at the age of one year, which will 
have the effect of giving it a more fibrous root, and of retard- 
ing its upward growth, which has the effect of diminishing 
the influence of frost to some extent during its nursery 
management.. The upward growth of foreign Scotch fir, 
however, in good shelter and in a favourable climate, is more 
rapid than that of the native plant. This is very decided in 
early life, but their girth is generally less, and, at best, the 
tree assumes the tall, slender appearance which I have 
observed conspicuously in the planted pine woods of Ger- 
many, even where the trees had ample space. Some young 
plantations formed in the Highlands of Scotland with plants 
from foreign seed, suffered so severely by the summer frosts 
of 1863 that the succeeding summers have not restored their 
vigour, while the native plant stood exempt from injury. 
The cones of the Scotch fir are ripe in the end of the year, 
but after being exposed to the frosts of winter a less degree 
of heat extracts the seeds, therefore they may be gathered in 
