68 



BmXISH FOREST TREES. 



iiial, the resulting vigour often overcoming the dis- 

 advantages. From the pine being found chiefly in 

 the light sandy districts on the continent of Europe, 

 and in the sandy pine barrens of America, an idea 

 has gone abroad that these barren districts are more 

 congenial to it than the more clayey, the more rocky, 

 or the richer vegetable mould ; but its natural location 

 in the barren sandy districts results from its being- 

 more powerful in this soil than any other plant of the 

 country, not from preference of this soil. Should 

 any one doubt of this, let him take a summer excur- 

 sion to Mar Forest, where no other tree having been 

 in competition with Pinus sylvestris, and where it is 

 spread over the hill and the dale, he will observe 

 that it prospers best in good timber soil, and though 

 comparatively preferring an easy soil, and having su- 

 perior adaptation to thin or rocky ground, that its 

 taste does not differ very materially from that of the 

 plane or the elm, the oak or the ash. 



In Mar Forest he will also observe (if they be not 

 now all cut down) several well marked individuals 

 of the splatch pine, esteemed a very valuable and 

 hardy kind ; and with the right which a botanist has 

 in a plant sown by nature, he may bear off some of 

 the seeds, and enfleavour to spread this rare indige- 

 nous kind throughout the island. Should he be 

 unsuccessful in finding these at Mar, he may return 



