CONIFERS. 



101 



According to the dictates of our botanical instructors, and the nostrums 

 of our popular Avriters upon the Conifers, we are given to understand 

 (and it might be inferred from their pedantic modes of supplying to us 

 practical cultivators their descriptive verbiage that we are to believe 

 and implicitly rely on what they teach us), that of this genus Pinvs, in 

 this year of grace, 1865, there have been discovered, descanted upon, 

 and most elaborately described, about One Half Thousand different 

 species. Be this as it may, however, with botanical theorists and 

 hair-splitting doctors, the practical culturists, for whom I write, 

 will find this number much reduced ; yet, not so much so as it will yet 

 have to be when time and experience have proved to us what many of 

 the quasi -species and varieties recently discovered and introduced 

 really are ; for in the following enumeration several so-called species 

 are allowed a place either as a recognized species or as a quasi-species, 

 until they have more fully developed themselves in this country. It 

 will be observed that I have discarded all such botanical dis- 

 tinctions as Bince, (two-leaved,) TerncE^ (three-leaved,) and Quinoey 

 (five-leaved,) which although generally correct, are nevertheless so 

 frequently incorrect, untruthful, and untenable, as to be of no value 

 whatever, either for science or practice ; and that I also dissent from 

 such divisions as Cernhra, Strobus, Pseudo-Strohus ? (only a quasi- 

 Strohus ?) Fiuea, Pinaster, and Tceda, though I take at least four of 

 them as prototypes ; experience having convinced me that all such 

 divisions are, at their highest value, only very nullities or legerdemain 

 tricks at proving a distinction without a difference ; for all such 

 botanical enactments, like some few of our class-legislative ones, do 

 very much resemble each the other, particularly the botanical, for the 

 driving a coach-and-four through them is a feat easily performed by the 

 most inexperienced driver. I have, therefore, lopped off all such 

 distinctions and divisions of this genus as so much extraneous lumber, 

 as unnecessary as it is untenable, retaining only Pinus, pure and simple. 



As a general rule, with the ordinary quota of exceptions, the Pines 

 may be thus summarily characterized : — Timber elastic, resinous, 

 tolerably durable, combustible, and, when well grown and free from 

 knots, easily wrought, and generally useful. The most of them will 

 grow in any ordinary soils if in a healthy condition ; some of the 

 species in the most sandy, heathy, gravelly, or barren kinds ; while 

 not one of them will thrive or produce good timber in such as are 

 thoroughly wet and marshy, soft peat, or other sour, undrained, 

 wet land. All of them, however, will not only grow, but luxuriate, in 



