176 THE PINE TREE. 
Young pine wood is also much used for paling, staves for 
dryware casks, lath, and such purposes. When in a more 
matured state, it is cut into deal for flooring, and all the other 
purposes of house-carpentry, railway sleepers, etc. The 
quality of pine timber is regulated to some extent by the 
soil, and more by its age, but most of all by its variety, that 
is, the purity or absence of degeneracy in which it is pro- 
duced. The plantation wood of degenerate quality sells at 
present for about 4d. or 6d. per cubical foot, while the native 
Highland variety fetches about double that rate, and its 
value is regulated by the price of foreign pine timber, which 
has of late been much reduced. In a treatise on the strength 
of timber, published by P. Barlow, F.R.S., showing the result 
of experiments on the strength of various kinds of timber, 
selected from the Woolwich dockyard, it is stated that pieces 
of Riga fir, 7 feet long by 2 inches square, broke with a 
weight of 422 Ibs.; pieces of the same dimensions, grown in 
Mar forest, broke with a weight.of 436 lbs., each being the 
mean results of three experiments. The mean results of a 
second trial are recorded, with pieces 6 feet long, 2 inches 
square. The Riga fir broke with a weight of 467 Ibs., and 
the Mar forest fir with a weight of 561 lbs., showing a differ- 
ence greatly in favour of the Scotch native timber. 
The Scotch pine, as well as all the pines, are subject to the 
ravages of various kinds of insects ; of these, several species 
of beetles are among the most destructive, particularly the 
Hylurgus piniperda, while the plants are in the nursery ground. 
This is a small beetle of the size and colour of the seed of 
Scotch pine, and varying in colour from a black to a light 
brown, as do the seeds of most kinds of the pine. The young 
shoots of all the kinds are commonly formed by the end of 
June, and it is in this month that this insect, active and 
on wing, generally begins its depredations, by boring into the 
young shoot, and perforating it in the centre like the stem of 
a tobacco-pipe. The more vigorous and succulent the growth 
the more subject it is to be attacked, especially in sheltered 
places, so that its ravages are chiefly confined to nursery- 
