IMPORTANCE OF SELECTING SEED IN PRACTICAL FORESTRY. 149 



much the same altitude as the experimental station where it was grown. 

 That the trees of these very high altitudes have developed the habit of 

 working during a very much shorter space of time than their allies in the 

 valleys below is quite distinctly made out from the enormous series of 

 observations in Professor Engler's paper. 



This is a fact of great importance to practical foresters, for it seems to 

 show that climatic adaptations can be inherited ; in other words, that an 

 inheritance of acquired characters does take place in the case of trees. 



The results as shown by photographs and tables are not a little striking. 

 In the Sycamore the growth in height of the Adlisberg seedling in the 

 third year was 41*9 cm., whilst that of the offspring of Alp Drusen trees 

 was only 21*3 cm. The total height of the Ponte (2,100 m.) larch 

 seedlings at Adlisberg was 21-3 cm., whilst those from Bonaduz (680 m.) 

 were 75*6 cm. ! In the case of Picea excelsa, the height above ground of 

 Engadine seedlings grown at Adlisberg was 21 -8 cm., whilst those from 

 Adlisberg seed at the same place were 36" 1 cm. 



These are but a few examples taken from the numerous tables which 

 may be said to conclusively prove, so far as the experiments have been 

 conducted, that the seeds of trees from very high altitudes do not grow at 

 all satisfactorily at low altitudes. 



On the other hand, they are probably the best to plant in the 

 mountains where their parents were produced. On this point also there 

 is abundant evidence. Gardens were made at twenty-two different 

 experimental stations at altitudes ranging from 380 m. to 1,880 m. above 

 the sea. 



Nor is it only in this question of rapidity of growth that inherited 

 characters are made manifest. The high-level trees have proportionately 

 longer roots, they are more closely be et with needles, and the latter are 

 shorter than those of the low-level seedlings. All these characteristics 

 are inherited. The thickness of the bark is greater and the leaves are 

 better protected against drought in the high mountain sorts. They also 

 endure the winter better in elevated experimental gardens than the larger 

 lowland seedlings. But they seem to be quite as susceptible to late frosts 

 as the lowland ones. 



An important point, on which Professor Engler lays great stress, is 

 that large seeds, whatever their origin, produce on the whole larger and 

 heavier plants than small ones. That, of course, is a very important fact 

 in forestry. 



Another very important practical point is connected with the growth- 

 forms of the Larch. Where the soil or climate produces in the general 

 larch population of a district a bad shape of stem, that peculiarity can be 

 inherited. It is true that this point is not so fully insisted upon, but it 

 is a fair deduction from the experiments. 



On the other hand, where a tree has been checked in development, 

 shaded or "dominated" by its neighbours, although in other ways healthy, 

 then its offspring do not differ perceptibly from those of the "overbearing" 

 trees beside it. 



It must not be understood that Professor Engler is an anti- 

 Weismannist. On the contrary he endeavours, every here and there, to 

 show that his paper does not conflict with the orthodox Weismannian 



