TREES OF SOUTHERN EUROPE. 
311 
excelsa , JPicea excelsa , abundant in the mountains of France 
and the contiguous country, is known for its product, Bur¬ 
gundy pitch, and, as it flourishes in a greater variety of soil 
and climate than almost any other spike-leaved tree, it might 
be well worth transplantation.* The cork oak has been intro¬ 
duced into the United States, I believe, and would undoubt¬ 
edly thrive in the Southern section of the Union.f 
In the walnut, the chestnut, the cork oak, the mulberry, 
the olive, the orange, the lemon, the fig, and the multitude of 
other trees which, by their fruit, or by other products, yield 
an annual revenue, nature has provided Southern Europe with 
* This fir is remarkable for its tendency to cicatrize or heal over its 
stumps, a property which it possesses in common with some other firs, the 
maritime pine, and the European larch. When these trees grow in thick 
clumps, their roots are apt to unite by a species of natural grafting, and 
if one of them be felled, although its own proper rootlets die, the stump 
may continue, sometimes for a century, to receive nourishment from the 
radicles of the surrounding trees, and a dome of wood and bark of con¬ 
siderable thickness be formed over it. The cicatrization is, however, only 
apparent, for the entire stump, except the outside ring of annual growth, 
soon dies, and even decays within its covering, without sending out new 
shoots. 
t At the age of twelve or fifteen years, the cork tree is stripped of its 
outer bark for the first time. This first yield is of inferior quality, and is 
employed for floats for nets and buoys, or burnt for lampblack. After this, 
a new layer of cork, an inch or an inch and a quarter in thickness, is formed 
about once in ten years, and is removed in large sheets without injury to 
the tree, which lives a hundred and fifty years or more. According to 
Clave (p. 252), the annual product of a forest of cork oaks is calculated at 
about 660 kilogrammes, worth 150 francs, to the hectare, which, deducting 
expenses, leaves a profit of 100 francs. This is about equal, to 250 pound 
weight, and eight dollars profit to the acre. The cork oaks of the national 
domain in Algeria cover about 500,000 acres, and are let to individuals at 
rates which are expected, when the whole is rented, to yield to the state 
a revenue of about $2,000,000. 
George Sand, in the Histoire de ma Vie , speaks of the cork forests in 
Southern France as among the most profitable of rural possessions, and 
states, what I do not remember to have seen noticed elsewhere, that Russia 
is the best customer for cork. The large sheets taken from the trees are 
slit into thin plates, and used to line the walls of apartments in that cold 
climate. 
