THE SCOTCH FIR OR PINE. 

 PiNus Sylvestris. 



The Scotch Fir is the only one which is a 

 native of Britain. Julius Caesar, it has been 

 remarked above/^" states that the Beech and the 

 kind of Fir which was known to the Romans by 

 the name of Abies, were not to be found in this 

 island. With regard to the Beech, I have endea- 

 voured to shew that he was in error ; but in the 

 other case he was probably correct, for the tree 

 which the Romans called Abies does not appear 

 to be the same with our Pine, but with what we call 

 the Silver Fir, which was not introduced into 

 England until the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century. From remote antiquity, the Pine has 

 grown in the Highlands of Scotland, and the 

 occasional discovery of trunks of the same tree in 

 peat-bogs sufficiently proves that it was at one 

 time indigenous to England. Extensive and most 

 magnificent forests of Pine still exist in Scotland, 

 exhibiting a character which belongs to no British 

 forests composed of other trees — so peculiar indeed, 

 and so wild, that it would be almost as hardy to 

 doubt their native origin, as to deny that the soil 

 from which they spring is a constituent part of 

 the country. 



In the forests of Invercauld and Brae- 



* Vol. I. p. 313. 



