A 
8 
PINETUM BRITANNICUM. 
in 1809) were upwards of 80 feet high, and contained about eight loads of timber each. There is one 
at Croom Court, in Worcestershire, 90 feet high, and many all over the country from 40 to 60 feet. 
Major-General Beatson, Governor of St Helena in 1811, mentions, in letters published in the 
St Helena Register , dated 22d July and 18th September, that most of the Pinasters at Plantation 
House, St Helena, were raised from seed brought by Mr Henry Porteous, and sown on the 1st of July 
1787. H e gives the girth of some of the largest of the trees in 1811 : one was 5 feet 7 inches in girth, 
others from 5 to 3 feet, or even less (all at 4 feet above the ground), the difference in size being due 
to the kind of soil in which they were planted. The product of one single tree was in all 193 
superficial feet. The first 7 feet above ground squared to 13 inches. The whole of the stem 
measured 146 superficial feet, and the large branches contained 47. The size of another specimen 
was 4 feet 8 in girth at 1 foot from the ground; 3 feet 7 at 2 feet from the ground; and 58 feet 
in height, of which 40 feet was serviceable timber. 
It is of little value as a timber tree, but has proved extremely useful for shelter and decoration. 
It is one of the few Conifers which thrive in sand, and under exposure to the sea-breeze; and has been 
found invaluable, on account of these properties, in reclaiming some, and preserving from desolation 
other, large tradfcs of sandy dunes, more especially on the western coasts of France. The Landes in 
the Gulf of Gascony are composed of loose drifting sand, which in 1789 covered 300 square miles. 
M. Bremontier, of the then Administration of Forests in France, set himself to fix this mercurial 
surface, and the means he used were planting it with the Pinaster. In a report of his proceedings, 
he compared this surface to a billowy sea. 
“ It offered nothing to the eye but a monotonous repetition of white wavy mountains perfectly destitute of vegetation. In times of 
violent storms of wind the surface of these downs was entirely changed; what were hills of sand often becoming valleys, and the contrary. 
The sand on these occasions was often carried up into the interior of the country, covering cultivated fields, villages, and even entire forests. 
This takes place so gradually (by the sand sweeping along the surface and thus raising it, or falling from the air in a shower of particles 
so fine as to be scarcely perceptible) that nothing was destroyed. The sand gradually rose among the crops as if they were inundated 
with water, and the herbage and the tops of trees appear quite green and healthy, even to the moment of their being overwhelmed with 
the sand, which is so very fine as to resemble that used in England in hour-glasses. On this moving and shifting sea, M. Bremontier 
sowed seeds of the common Broom mixed with those of the P. Pinaster , commencing on the side next the sea, or on that from which the 
wind generally prevails, and sowing in narrow zones, in a direction at right angles to that of the wind—the first-sown zone being protected 
by a line of hurdles, this zone protecting the second, the second the third, and so on.” 
To prevent the seed being blown away before it had germinated and become firmly rooted, he pro¬ 
tected it by various ingenious modes, such as hurdles and thatching, and he had at last the gratification, 
after conquering many difficulties, of seeing his first zones firmly established. The rest was then com¬ 
paratively easy, and by rapid degrees the Pinaster covered the whole of these sandy downs; thus not 
only providing the interior country with a barrier against the assaults of the sands, but turning the downs 
themselves from a desolate waste into a source of productive industry. 
The details of the whole process are thus quoted at length by Loudon: 
“ From 4 lb. to 5 lb. of Broom seed, and from 1 lb. to 2 lb. of Pinaster seed, are sown per acre, and immediately covered with branches 
of Pines or of other trees with the leaves on, brought from the nearest woods, in order to shelter and proteCl the seed, and by help of the 
hurdle fence to retain the sand. These branches are laid down in a regular manner in the direction of the wind, and overlapping one another, 
so as to produce a sort of thatching to the surface; and in places very much exposed rods are laid across them and firmly hooked down. 
In a word, wherever seeds are sown, the surface of the downs, as far as the sowing extends, may be said to be carefully thatched; branches 
of evergreen trees being used instead of straw. In six weeks or two months the Broom seeds have produced plants 6 inches in height, and 
which attain three or four times that height in the course of the first season. The Pines do not rise above 3 inches or 4 inches in the first year; 
and it is seven or eight years before they completely overtop the Broom, which often attains in these downs from 12 feet to 15 feet in height. 
At the age of ten or twelve years, the Pines have in a great measure suffocated the Broom, and they are then thinned; the branches 
cut off being used for the purpose of thatching downs not yet recovered, and the trunks and roots cut into pieces and burned to make tar 
and charcoal. In about twenty years the trees are from 20 feet to 30 feet in height, and they are now prepared for producing resin, which process 
is carried on for ten or twelve years, when the trees are cut down and their branches applied, as before, for thatching, and their trunks and roots 
for making tar and charcoal, the self-sown seeds having furnished the surface with a progeny to succeed them. In 1811, a commission, 
appointed 
