GENERAL TREATMENT OF THE GENUS PINUS. 
65 
The time, situation, and soil for transplantation, next demand deliberation. 
In our opinion, April or May is the only proper period for the removal of Pine- 
plants to the open ground. When planted earlier, they are necessarily subjected 
to frost ; and if the operation be deferred till autumn, precisely parallel results 
will follow. 
It is quite a mistake to suppose that a low spot, much secluded from violent 
winds, is a favourable position for a Pinetum. On the contrary, if their natural 
habits are consulted, it will be seen that they love to grow on those elevated sites 
where gales are exceedingly frequent, and where they are ever kept in either a 
gentle or tumultuous agitation. A rather steep, but not too precipitous bank, 
facing the south and west, while, by consequence, the northern and easterly winds 
are considerably warded off, seems to us to present a situation as perfectly 
suitable as can well be conceived. Nor is this suggestion based on their native 
locality alone : we have witnessed plants so placed luxuriating in greater vigour 
than we ever elsewhere observed. 
Regarding soil, the usual practice of supplying a compost of loam and heath- 
mould, or even one in which fresh loam is the sole apparent constituent, is not 
founded on experimental data. Between the species of Pinus proper, and those 
detached by many botanists under the names of Picea and Abies, there should be 
some distinction on this head. The members of the former class have, generally, 
fewer roots, with a much less disposition to form fibres, than the plants of the 
two latter divisions. They therefore require a more adhesive earth. But the 
species of Abies, and all whose habits bear any approximation to them, thrive 
most steadily and securely when a copious quantity of sand exists in, or is added 
to, the soil in which they are placed. 
Of the accuracy of the foregoing statement, we have had the most demon- 
strative proof, and may further remark, that ' a very superficial stratum of 
suitable earth is equally advantageous, provided the sub-stratum be of a rocky 
nature. An under layer of sandstone, with a superincumbent mass, about 
eighteen inches or two feet in depth, of loose sandy loam, in which portions of the 
lower stratum are sparingly mingled, is a fair model for the grower of Pines, 
and his success will be commensurate with the extent to which these conditions 
are maintained or departed from. 
Many modes of protecting the tender species of Pinus might be exhibited, 
each of which has probably a separate recommendation ; but as almost every 
individual has a system of his own, it would seem invidious to detail or praise 
any particular method. We can merely allege, that if during the processes 
attendant on rearing the young specimens, their after hardihood is kept promi- 
nently in view, and no excitement afforded them which will at all endanger or 
diminish that pre-eminent desideratum, much of the expenditure at present 
bestowed on shelter may be wholly dispensed with. 
VOL. VII. NO. LXXV 
K 
