IMPORTANCE OF SELECTING SEED IN PRACTICAL FORESTRY. 147 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SELECTING SEED IN PRACTICAL 



FORESTRY. 



By Professor G. F. Scott-Elliot, M.A., B.Sc, &c. 



It is not very common to find those who are actually engaged in forestry 

 paying much attention to the source from which their seed is derived. 



A most interesting and instructive series of experiments has been 

 carried out by Professor Adolf Engler in Zurich in this connection. 



He obtained seeds of Picea, Pinus, Sycamore and Larch from trees 

 growing at different altitudes, and then sowed all these seeds in some 

 twenty-two experimental gardens, which also were at different altitudes, 

 ranging from 500 or 600 metres to 2,000 metres (1,500 to 6,000 feet). 

 The paper in which these experiments are detailed bears every mark of 

 the very greatest care. There are numerous tables and also photographs 

 showing the differences of growth of seedlings of different origin when 

 developing side by side.* 



The subject may be a little novel to English readers, for amongst the 

 authors cited by him there is only one English paper ! That is by 

 G rigor and Forres in the " Gardeners' Chronicle " of 1865 ! Moreover, the 

 French and German papers quoted are almost all practically inaccessible 

 to English readers. I do not think some of them can be seen anywhere 

 except possibly in the Royal Society's library. Therefore a somewhat 

 detailed account of these researches may be of interest. 



The question is not new, for important experiments have already been 

 carried out. 



Louis Vilmorin t cultivated at Les Barres (Departeruent Loiret) Scotch 

 Fir from French, Scotch, German, and Russian (Riga) seed. He found 

 that the Riga Firs were particularly remarkable for their beautiful, straight 

 boles, and scanty branching. They indeed surpassed all other kinds. The 

 second generation at Les Barres from the seed of these Riga Firs possessed 

 the same excellent properties. Grigor and Forres (r.s.) made experiments 

 with Scotch and Continental Pin us sylvestris. Turski % experimented with 

 seeds both from Tver in Russia and from Darmstadt. Dr. Cieslar tried 

 the same sort of experiments with plants of Picea excelsa (from 1 to 3 

 years old), of Pinus sylvestris (1 to 12 years old), and of Larch (1 to 12 

 years old) ; he compared the seedlings raised from seed obtained in 

 Sweden, Finland, and the Austrian Alps and from trees grown at different 

 altitudes. He found that the power of growth is inherited from the 

 mother tree in the cases of both Picea excelsa and Pinus sylvestris. The 

 seeds from low elevations furnished quicker growing trees. The seedlings 



* Mittheilungen der Schiceizcrischen Central- Anstalten fiir das forstlichc 

 Versuchsivesen, Band viii., 2e. Heft, 1905. 



t Mimoires d' Agriculture, Paris, 1862, p. 332. Also Administration des ForHs : 

 Catalogue des vegetaux, etc., sur le domaine forestier des Barres Vilmorin, Paris, 1878. 



X Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung, 1880, p. 57. 



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