l'ecole forestieke des babkes. 107 



their worth, some for their renown, and some for purposes of com- 

 parison and experiment ; and they were planted alone or in ^elump3 

 as might be necessary to bring out their characteristic points. 



Since the death of M. Vilmorin, the founder, the portion of his 

 estate containing the experimental forest has been purchased by the 

 Government, that it may be maintained as a national establishment. 



Of the pinus sylvestris, M. Vilmorin reports : — " Of the different 

 questions which I have proposed to myself to solve, by means of the 

 Barres plantations, none is more important from a practical point of 

 view than that concerning the varieties of pinus sylvestris. 



" At the sametime there is not one on which more contradictory, 

 and sometimes inexact, notions are to be found in books ; so I shall 

 be obliged, before proceeding to the direct observations which I give, 

 to enter into rather full preliminary observations in regard to it. It 

 is an unhappy necessity, but circumstances render it inevitable. 



" It being of importance that this should be well understood, I 

 shall first speak of the pine and whence it comes. I shall then show 

 the principal opinions advanced on this subject, stopping at those 

 which, establishing errors essentially hurtful in practice, demand dis- 

 cussion ; then, lastly, I shall arrive at the special work which is the 

 object of this memoir — viz., the examination of the collection which 

 I have gathered together at Barres. 



" The pinus sylvestris, the most widely diffused of those which form 

 the pine forests of Europe and the north of Asia, is at the same time 

 one of the best and most useful. Robust, and somewhat indifferent 

 in regard to soil, it succeeds in sands too damp, and in situations too 

 much exposed to frost for the maritime pine, and, by a remarkable 

 contrast, on lime and chalk soils, where the latter caDnot live. 



" Its wood, strong and durable, at the same time light and elastic, 

 is much used in civil and naval constructions, for it is principally it 

 which furnishes the excellent pine masts of the north, of which no 

 other pine offers the equivalent. 



" But with these remarkable qualities this tree has one peculiarity 

 which tends to diminish its value, and which has created much con- 

 fusion, in reports concerning it — viz., its being liable to change and 

 vary to such a degree that perhaps nothing similar exists in any 

 other species. 



" Thus, whilst in the forests of Russia aud Lithuania it attains the 

 size of the largest firs, and furnishes admirable trunks, which sell in 

 our ports and in those of England for from 1,000 to 5,000 francs and 



