180 THE PINE TREE. 
pine, as screen-fences, with the view of intercepting snow- 
drift, which so frequently blocks up railways throughout 
Highland districts. P. montana is best adapted for this pur- 
pose, as it becomes a bush twenty feet high. There is very 
little demand for these trees in nurseries, but as their seeds 
are readily obtained from the foreign-tree seed-merchants at 
a cheap rate, the plants could be grown to order at a few 
shillings per thousand. There are five or six other varieties 
of Pinus sylvestris recorded in nurserymen’s catalogues and in 
cultivation. 
P. Laricio (Poir), or Corsican Pine.—This tree was introduced 
into England about the middle of the eighteenth century. 
It is a native of various parts of the south of Europe, and 
of the west and north of Asia. In the island of Corsica it 
frequently attains to the height of 140 feet, but it does not 
inhabit the poorest soils, nor is it found natural at a great 
altitude. This species, like others extending to various coun- 
tries, has many varieties. It is remarkable for its rapid 
growth when young. In the Jardin des Plantes at Paris 
it attained the height of eighty feet, with a trunk seven feet 
in circumference, in a period of fifty-five years, and it has been 
known to produce a top shoot three feet long in one season. 
It is quite hardy, but in poor, exposed ground, the vigour of 
the tree, after a few years, is not greater than that of the 
native pine in upward growth, and its girth is somewhat less. 
It therefore requires good soil and a favourable situation, into 
which it should be removed at an early age, as, like all other 
pines of early vigour, it is apt to form a root small in pro- 
portion to its top, which renders it difficult to remove with 
safety. The price of young plants fluctuates very much, on 
account of the scarcity of seeds in some seasons on the Con- 
tinent, from whence they are usually imported. One and two 
year seedling one-year transplanted plants commonly range 
from 10s, to 12s. per 1000. The timber of the tree, when young, 
is soft and easily worked, like that of the rapidly-grown Scotch 
pine ; when old, it is said to be tough and resinous. 
P. L. Austriaca (Hoss).—The black pine of Austria was intro- 
