40 



SCOTS FIR. 



of its timber, as well as the colour and the length 

 of its leaves or spines, are materially different from 

 the same characteristics in the intruder. As to the 

 alleged disparity in the top and branches, it is easi- 

 ly accounted for, supposing the Highland and the 

 Lowland firs to be members of the same native 

 family, and lineally descended from one original 

 stock, without foreign mixture or adulteration. In 

 natural forests, the trees generally stand at much 

 greater distances from one another than in planta- 

 tions formed by art. That the former, therefore, 

 should have more spreading and larger branches, 

 is just the result of this very circumstance ; for 

 these characteristics in individuals of the same 

 species will, other things being equal, be always 

 found in exact proportion to the quantity of air and 

 light admitted to each. When a Scots fir, even of 

 this alleged foreign species, is planted in a single 

 row, or by itself, it never fails to have both large 

 branches and a spreading top, in comparison of what 

 it possesses when it grows in a thicket ; and the 

 same is often the case on the outside of a large 

 plantation, where, in one direction at least, there is 

 no exclusion either of light or air. That the greater 

 poverty of soil, in the districts where our natural 

 forests are to be found, will fully account for the 



