THE SCOTCH FIR OR PINE. 



357 



Pine, which it resembles also in the easy sweep of 

 its stem, and likewise the colour of its 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 years 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 neigh- 

 bourhood. 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 

 EzekieFs Cedar, it has formed its head among the 

 thick branches. This character of the Scotch Fir 

 is true only when it grows singly, or in small 

 groups ; for when the trees grow in compact 

 bodies, the heads are drawn up without forming 

 lateral branches, the stems becoming mere poles, 

 with heads of tufted foliage ; consequently, the 

 trees which furnish the most valuable timber, 

 possess little picturesque beauty." 



''Few persons," says Mr. Forsyth, '' can form 

 any correct idea of the true character of the Moun- 

 tain Pine from the samples generally seen in En- 

 glish screen plantations, where this noble tree is 

 made the nurse and drudge of something else for 

 which the soil and climate are better adapted, the 

 muddy swamp and arid barren steep being alike 

 unfavourable to its perfection. Nor need we look to 

 plantations in England and Wales for better exam- 

 ples, for though the soil and climate maybe suitable, 

 the systematic butchering of the young trees by 

 the scientific pruner renders the forest only a 

 host of stalwart cripples. Common sense and ob- 



