436 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



tries. In the same way, the Oak in the highland mountains of Scotland 

 o^r Wales is of a much harder and closer grain, and therefore more 

 durable, than what is found in England ; though on such mountains it 

 seldom rises to the fifth part, or less, of the English tree. Every car- 

 penter in Scotland knows the extraordinary difference between the 

 durability of Highland Oak and Oak usually imported from England, 

 for the spokes of wheels. Every extensive timber-dealer is aware of 

 the superior hardness of Oak raised in Cumberland and Yorkshire, over 

 that of Monmouthshire and Herefordshire ; and such a dealer, in select- 

 ing trees in the same woods in any district, will always give the prefer- 

 ence to Oak of dow growth, and found on cold and clayey soils, and to 

 Ash on rocky cliffs — which he knows to be the soils and climates natural 

 to both. If he take a cubic foot of park Oak and another of forest 

 Oak, and weigh the one against the other, (or if he do the like with Ash 

 and Elm of the same descriptions,) the latter will uniformly turn out 

 the heavier of the two. 



As an analogous case, I may refer to some facts collected by Lambert 

 (no mean authority) respecting the Scotch Fir, {Pinus silvestris.) He 

 says, that it does not stand longer than forty or fifty years on the 

 rich and fertile land in both England and Scotland, where it is often 

 planted, and where it rushes up with extraordinary rapidity. In the 

 northern districts of Scotland, on the other hand, (a thing well kno^^^l 

 to myself,) the difference between park Fir and Highland Fir is univer- 

 sally known and admitted ; and the superiority of the latter is proved 

 by its existence in buildings of great antiquity, M'here it is still found 

 in a sound state — a difference which can be ascribed to no other cause 

 than the mountainous situations (that is, the natural state) in which 

 the former timber is produced, and " where, the trees being of slower' 

 growtJi, the wood is consequently of a harder texture." — Monogr. on 

 the Gen. Pin. p. 34. 



To the above I may add a circumstance connected with the Larch, 

 another tree possessing a dense, hard, and durable fibre in its natural 

 state. A friend of mine had some trees of this species, which had 

 grown nearly fifty years, in a deep rich loam, close to some cottages and 

 cabbage-gardens, where they had amply shared in the benefit of culture 

 from the latter. When felled, the wood was soft and porous. It turned 

 out of no duration when cut up into floors and field -gates ; and it was 

 even found to burn as tolerable fire-wood, which Larch of superior 

 quality is known never to do, at least without the assistance of some 

 other wood. 



From these facts, and others that might be brought forward, (if room 



