GENERAL TREATMENT OP THE GENUS PINUS. 
63 
bidding the ordinary methods of culture. We refer to the hills and moor-land 
in the north, and various similar positions farther south. 
To " set the pine and the fir-tree in the desert," and clothe the barren hills 
with wealth and grandeur, is surely an end worthy of the most unwearied 
assiduity ; and we indulge the expectation that when the hardier species of 
Pinus become naturalized, they will be found more than sufficient to accomplish 
so desirable an object. With the original rearing and after-culture of the kinds 
at present in our gardens, we have now to deal ; considering that, besides the 
absolute necessity of attention to those specimens already in our possession, the 
anticipated and more remote results above touched upon must be preceded by 
the institution of a regular routine of appropriate treatment. 
In penning a few hints on the culture of this genus, we are first called upon 
to discuss the subject of seed-sowing, and the management of seedlings. This is 
a matter of most vital moment, since no success in acclimatation can reasonably be 
hoped for if the requisite habit and degree of hardihood be not early engendered. 
Whether the seeds are ripened here, or imported from their native districts, they 
should never be germinated in a hothouse ; for, although nurserymen too often 
raise them in a stove or hotbed-frame, on account of their natural wish to bring 
them to a saleable state in the least possible time, the practice is most injudicious, 
and such specimens seldom prove at all robust. 
After carefully detaching the seeds from their cones, they must at once be 
sown in shallow pans or flats, which can be manufactured for this and analogous 
purposes, as none must be so used without they have a number of moderate-sized 
perforations in the bottom. The chief error in raising Pines from seeds, is neglect 
of proper drainage to the pots in which they are sown ; many persons employing 
common flower-pot flats, which, having no apertures for the dispersion of fluids, 
retain a quantity of stagnant water perpetually in the soil, and inevitably destroy 
either the seeds or seedlings. 
Much also depends on the choice of soil. All heath-mould, or anything assimi- 
lating thereto, must be wholly discarded ; a light maiden loam, with which a 
large portion of white sand has been mixed, being incontestibly the most con- 
genial. Over the potsherds placed at the bottom of the pan, one or two handfuls 
of broken sandstone may very properly be introduced. When the seeds are sown 
on the soil thus described, and covered very lightly with the same compost, a 
trifling watering, through a fine rose, can be administered, and the pans then 
removed to a cold dry frame, to which light has free admission. 
From the time of sowing, till the vegetation of the seeds, the chief point is to 
secure a fit degree of moisture for softening and expanding the seed-lobes, and 
stimulating the embryo to elaborate its leaves and roots ; but never to allow so 
much to accumulate as would cause decomposition. Of all the dangers incident 
to the incipient plants at this uncertain period, that from redundant fluid is the 
most imminent. To adapt the condition of the air as far as practicable to their 
