70 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mountain- SIDE Cultivation. 



On the south side of the island much of the prinievcd woodhind has 

 disappeared. " Madeira," which means " wood," was the name given 

 to the island by the Portuguese discoverers, on account of its densely 

 forested appearance. The ancient chestnut and laurel woods are cut 

 down and some oak and plane planted, but the greatest woodland 

 industry is the pine cultivation. The quick-growing Maritime Pine 

 {Pinus Pinaster), " Pinheiro," is planted in thousands on the steepest 

 mountain sides wherever a thin layer of soil covers the rock, from 

 1,500 feet to the pine tree limit, which is reached at about 4,000 feet. 

 Here the pines may be seen in patches of varying dimensions and 

 of all ages and sizes, from seedlings and those whose twigs have passed 

 " The kids' lips, the stags' antlers"; from slender saplings up to 

 the lofty slim trunks which are felled and cut up into cord-wood on 

 the hillsides and dragged down to the town by men and oxen in huge 

 piled-up loads on sleds, to supply firewood for Funchal and all the 

 other inhabited places. Smaller trees, 15 to 20 feet high, are used 

 to form the strong uprights for corredors and latadas, to be covered 

 with an interlacing roof-work of giant reeds. The pine-cones are used 

 as kindling for the wood fires. Yv^hen the pine-seeds are sown broad- 

 cast on the roughly hoed-up mountain-sides other seeds are scattered 

 with them, notably the Broom {Saroihamnus scoparius), " Giesta," 

 which, growing up, protects the pine seedlings and is cleared off after 

 three or four years. Much use is made of the Broom ; the finest basket- 

 work is made of Broom twigs, while the green branches are cut and 

 placed at the bottom of the trenches in the vegetable gardens before 

 the crops are sown or planted in them. Besides rotting down and 

 forming a useful fertilizer, during the process they evolve a pleasant 

 w^armth, which, as bottom heat, hastens the growth of the crops. 



Willows. 



One of the great industries of Madeira is the basket-work. One 

 passes strings of women walking down from their mountain villages 

 1,000 to 3,000 feet up, carrying a pile of four to six wicker chairs 

 on their heads, and boys with sticks over their shoulders, from which 

 hang numbers of baskets. They make settees, chairs, footstools, tea- 

 tables, work-tables, baskets of all shapes and sizes, covered and other- 

 wise. The willows used in this work are growm up in the mountain 

 ravines and on the edges of the terraces, mostly between 1,000 and 

 2,000 feet. Tlie willow trees are very cleverly planted so as not to 

 shade or injure any crop; they are put in any odd corners where 

 they can have a modicum of soil and plenty of water, and especially 

 are they planted on the outer edges of the high terraces, w^hich are 

 often 8 to 10 feet one above another, so that the bushes hang over 

 aiul outward with plenty of room. 



