chap. exni. coni'f£uac. pi v nus. 2177 



growth. Its ramification, too, is irregular and beautiful, and not unlike that 



of the stone pine, which it resembles, also, in the easy sweep of its stem, and 

 likewise in the colour of the bark, which is commonly, as it attains age, of a rich 

 reddish brown. The Scotch fir, indeed, in its stripling state, is less an object 

 of beauty. Its pointed and spiry shoots, during the first year of its growth, 

 are formal ; and yet I have sometimes seen a good contrast produced between 

 its spiry points and the round-headed oaks and elms in its neighbourhood. 

 When I speak, however, of the Scotch fir as a beautiful individual, I conceive 

 it when it has outgrown all the improprieties of its youth; when it has 

 completed its full age, and when, like Ezekiel's cedar, it has formed its 

 head among the thick branches. I may be singular in my attachment to the 

 Scotch fir. I know it has many enemies; but my opinion will weigh only 

 with the reasons I have given." (Ibid.) Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, in his 

 commentary on this passage, says, " We agree with Mr. Gilpin to the fullest 

 extent in his approbation of the Scotch fir as a picturesque tree. We, for 

 our parts, confess, that, when we have seen it towering in full majesty in the 

 midst of some appropriate Highland scene, and sending its limbs abroad with all 

 the unconstrained freedom of a hardy mountaineer, as if it claimed dominion 

 over the savage regions around it, we have looked upon it as a very sublime 

 object. People who have not seen it in its native climate and soil, and who 

 judge of it from the wretched abortions which are swaddled and suffocated in 

 English plantations, in deep, heavy, and eternally wet clays, may well call it 

 a wretched tree; but, when its foot is among its own Highland heather, and 

 when it stands freely on its native knoll of dry gravel, or thinly covered rock, 

 over which its roots wander far in the wildest reticulation, whilst its tall, fur- 

 rowed, and often gracefully sweeping red and grey trunk, of enormous cir- 

 cumference, rears aloft its high umbrageous canopy, then would the greatest 

 sceptic on this point be compelled to prostrate his mind before it with a vene- 

 ration which, perhaps, was never before excited in him by any other tree." 

 (Laud. Gilp., i. p. 174.) To enable the reader to judge of the correctness 

 of the opinion of Gilpin and Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, with which we entirely 

 agree as to the beauty of this tree, in certain circumstances of age and situa- 

 tion, we have only to refer to figs. 2051. and 2052. in p. 2163. and p. 2164. ; 

 to the plates of this tree in our last Volume ; and to the beautiful views of 

 scenery in the Highlands, by Robson and Nesfield. 



Soil and Situation. A granitic soil, it is generally allowed both by British 

 and Continental writers, is the most congenial to the Scotch pine; and the 

 sand and gravel of the Forests of Rastadt and Hagueneau are composed of 

 the debris of this rock. J. S. Menteath, Esq., has remarked that the Scotch 

 pine does not harden its wood well when growing on the grauwacke ; and 

 several others have observed that it is short-lived, and never attains a large 

 size on chalk. The Scotch pine, Sang observes, will grow and flourish in 

 any kind of soil, from a sand to a clay, provided the substratum be rubble or 

 rock ; " but in wet tilly soils it ought never to be planted ; because, whenever 

 the roots have exhausted the turf, or upper soil, and begin to perforate the sub- 

 soil, the tree languishes and dies." It is justly observed by Mathews, that the 

 natural location of the Scotch pine in poor sandy soils does not result from these 

 soils being best adapted for it, but from its growing more vigorously in them than 

 any other tree. Should any one doubt this, he observes, let him make an excur- 

 sion into Mar Forest, and there he will find the Scotch pine in every description 

 of soil and situation, but always thriving best in good timber soil ; and, in short, 

 not differing very materially, in respect to soil, from the sycamore, the elm, 

 the oak, or the ash. Mr. Mathews also mentions that, though the Scotch 

 pine has a superior adaptation to dry, sharp, and rocky soils, yet there are 

 many situations of poor wet till and clay, and even of peat moss ground, 

 where it would be advantageous to plant the Scotch pine; because, from its 

 roots running along the surface, no other timber tree will thrive so well in 

 such soils. The same author observes that nothing conduces so much to the 

 quality of Scotch pine wood, as the exposure of the tree while growing. 



7 n 2 



