INTEODUCTION. 125 



feet in height, and on minutely examining the surface 

 another class of plants between 6 and 12 inches in 

 height growing up, but less vigorously than the former. 

 The latter class do not gain in growth upon the former, 

 as might be supposed, till they overtake them, but, on 

 the contrary, lose so much growth every succeeding 

 year till they ultimately disappear altogether, leaving 

 the original 800 sole and exclusive occupants of the 

 ground, which they exultingly possess. 



When once a crop of trees is fairly established, and 

 placed under favourable conditions for growing, all 

 that they further require is time to grow; and it is 

 in this probably, as much as in anything else, that the 

 secret of good forestry lies. The natural impatience and 

 impulsiveness of man lead him constantly astray, and 

 in nothing more so than in the culture of trees. In 

 the natural forest, where no labour was bestowed, no 

 recompense is looked for or sought : where no money 

 has been expended, no interest need be claimed ; where 

 nothing has been given, nothing should be required. 

 Hence the goodly old natural forests, that have been 

 allowed to stand and grow to maturity during two or 

 three centuries, alike uncaring and uncared for, till 

 some accidental circumstance,— like the opening of a 

 railway, diminished foreign supplies of timber, insol- 

 vent proprietor, or some pressing local' demand for 

 wood at home, — awakens the happy thought of cut- 

 ting and clearing 1000 acres or so at a sweep, and 

 realising ^100 per acre — by no means a high figure, 

 comparing it with what I have seen in the districts 

 referred to, where many acres may be found worth 

 considerably over twice that sum. 



Not a few are of opinion that there is a distinct 

 variety of the Pinus sylvestris, called in the Highlands 



