CHAP. CXIII.

CONl'FEIUE. Pl'NUS.

2219

in the gardens of Fulham Palace; and the next largest are at Syon, Pain’s Hill,and Whitton. The tree at Fulham is above 80 ft. high; one of those at Whittonis 60 ft. high, with a trunk 4 ft. in diameter, clear of branches to the height of40 ft. Several at Pain’s Hill, and some at Syon, are above 60 ft. high. Thelargest pinasters which we have heard of in England are at Westwich House,Norfolk, the seat of J. Peters, Esq. They were planted in 1702, and in 1809several of them were measured by N. Kent, Esq., and found to be upwardsof 80 ft. high, and to contain about eight loads of timber each. (See Trans.Sue. Arts, vol. xxviii. p. 42.)

Geography, History, fyc. The pinaster is indigenous to the south ofEurope, and to both shores of the Mediterranean; to Greece, the west ofAsia, the Himalayas, and, as it would appear, even to China. It may bedoubted, however, whether it has not been carried from Europe to thelatter country. It is not indigenous to the north of France or Germany,and is, perhaps, most abundant in Spain, and on the shores of the Mediterra-nean. It never thrives, except in deep sand or sandy loam; and it is saidto perish when planted in calcareous soil. The pinaster was introducedinto England in 1596, by Gerard; and one of the oldest trees still existing isin the gardens of the episcopal palace at Fulham, where, as we have seenabove and in p. 43., it was, in 1835, 80 ft. high. The pinaster has since beenvery extensively planted in Britain, as an ornamental tree; and, in someparts of Hampshire and Norfolk, plantations of it have been formed on alarge scale for useful purposes. In Hampshire, it has generally failed,from the soil being peaty, wet at bottom, shallow, and hard, or the subsoilbeing chalk. In Norfolk, on the other hand, where it has been plantedin deep sand, the success has been very different. At Westwich House, inthat county, already mentioned, the pinaster began to be planted in 1702; andmany trees, still existing there, are from 70 ft. to 80 ft. high, with trunks pro-portionately thick. An account of the pinaster plantations at this place, takenin 1809, is given in the Transactions of the Society of Arts, vol. xxviii., by whichit appears that J. B. Peters, Esq., the father of the present proprietor, hadraised above 200,000 plants from seeds gathered from his own trees. Hehad planted altogether upwards of 500 acres, through which he had formed adrive of five miles in length. The situation is bleak, and the soil sand,covered with heath, on a subsoil of coarse hard gravel, or dead vellow sand.Nevertheless, on this soil the plants grow so rapidly, that, in 8 or 9 yearsafter planting, their trunks are from 10 in. to 20 in. round, and some haveoccasionally made shoots of 5 ft. in length in 2 years. They are planted at7 ft. apart every way, and remain unthinned and unpruned till they attain acircumference of 2 ft. or 3 ft. Such is the vigour with which these treesgrow, that, on the steep side of a hill, the roots have been observed to emergefrom the soil, creep along its surface for 2 ft. or 3 ft., and then strike into thesoil again. {Trans. Soc. Arts, vol. xxviii. p. 42.) In Scotland and Ireland, thepinaster has only been planted as an ornamental tree; and it thrives, in thesecountries, in low situations, and near the sea. In France, it cannot be culti-vated with a view to profit, to the north of Paris; and, even in that latitude,it is sometimes destroyed by severe winters : for example, in 1788, when asevere frost killed some large trees on the estate of Malesherbes. It aboundsin Switzerland, where its timber is said to be used in forming shingles; and itis planted as an ornamental tree in Germany, but scarcely thrives north ofHamburg.

The most remarkable fact in the history of this tree is, the great use whichhas been made of it in France, in covering immense tracts of barren sand.This mode of improvement was first commenced in 1789, by M. Bremontier,of the Administration of Forests, who published a memoir on the subject inthe year 1800, of which we shall make a very brief abridgement. There arevery extensive downs in several countries of Europe ; and the most remarkablein France are those between Dunkirk and Nieuport, between Calais andBoulogne, and between the rivers Adour and Gironde. Bremontier com-