chap. cxni.

coni'feua:. f'i'nus.

2177

growth. Its ramification, too, is irregular and beautiful, and not unlike thatof the stone pine, which it resembles, also, in the easy sweep of its stem, andlikewise in the colour of the bark, which is commonly, as it attains age, of a richreddish brown. The Scotch fir, indeed, in its stripling state, is less an objectot beauty. Its pointed and spiry shoots, during the first year of its growth,are formal; and yet I have sometimes seen a good contrast produced betweenits spiry points and the round-headed oaks and elms in its neighbourhood.When I speak, however, of the Scotch fir as a beautiful individual, I conceiveit when it has outgrown all the improprieties of its youth; when it hascompleted its full age, and when, like Ezekiel’s cedar, it has formed itshead among the thick branches. I may he singular in my attachment to theScotch fir. I know it has many enemies; but my opinion will weigh onlywith the reasons I have given.” ( Ibid .) Sir Thomas Dick Lauder , in hiscommentary on this passage, says, “ We agree with Mr. Gilpin to the fullestextent in his approbation of the Scotch fir as a picturesque tree. We, forour parts, confess, that, 'when we have seen it towering in full majesty in themidst of some appropriate Highland scene, and sending its limbs abroad witli allthe unconstrained freedom of a hardy mountaineer, as if it claimed dominionover the savage regions around it, we have looked upon it as a very sublimeobject. People who have not seen it in its native climate and soil, and whojudge of it from the wretched abortions which are swaddled and suffocated inEnglish plantations, in deep, heavy, and eternally wet clays, may well call ita wretched tree; but, when its foot is among its ow 7 n Highland heather, andwhen it stands freely on its native knoll of dry gravel, or thinly covered rock,over which its roots wander far in the wildest reticulation, whilst its tall, fur-rowed, and often gracefully sweeping red and grey trunk, of enormous cir-cumference, rears aloft its high umbrageous canopy, then would the greatestsceptic on this point be compelled to prostrate his mind before it with a vene-ration which, perhaps, was never before excited in him by any other tree.”

ChTp., i. n. 174.) To enable the reader to judge of the correctness° the opinion of Gilpin and Sir Thomas Dick Lauder , with which we entirely“gree as to the beauty of this tree, in certain circumstances of age and situa-t We *' aVe onl . vto re f er to 2051. and 2052, in p. 2163. and p. 2164.;to the plates of this tree in our last Volume; and to the beautiful views ofswnery in the Highlands, by Robson and Nesfield.

j" an d Situation. A granitic soil, it is generally allowed both by BritishMd Continental writers, is the most congenial to the Scotch pine; and thei? 1 "* ant j gravel of the Forests of Rastadt and Hagueneau are composed of, e debris of this rock. J. S. Menteath, Esq., has remarked that the ScotchPWe does not harden its wood well when growing on the grauwacke; andseveral others have observed that it is short-lived, and never attains a large® lze on chalk. The Scotch pine, Sang observes, will grow and flourish iny Kind of soil, from a sand to a clay, provided the substratum be rubble or,? c * ’ <l but in wet tilly soils it ought never to be planted ; because, whenever?, ro ° ts hav e exhausted the turf, or upper soil, and begin to perforate the sub-’’ i tr ee languishes and dies.” It is justly observed by Mathews, that the^al location of the Scotch pine in poor sandy soils does not result from thesean S n ' )es *' a< ^ a pted for it, but from its growing more vigorously in them thans j • . er tree. Should any one doubt this, he observes, let him make an excur-a into Mar Forest, and there he will find the Scotch pine in every descriptionnot « .and situation, but always thriving best in good timber soil; and, in short,thp d lf e ™8 ver .Y materially, in respect to soil, from the sycamore, the elm,pin h '’ 0r ^ le as 'b■ Mr. Mathews also mentions that, though the Scotchman ' 3 s . u P er ' or adaptation to dry, sharp, and rocky soils, yet there arewhe^ * ltuat * ons °f poor wet till and clay, and even of peat moss ground,* 0 ," 11 w p u ld be advantageous to plant the Scotch pine; because, from itsSUc ^ s rU , nnin S a ^ on S surface, no other timber tree will thrive so well inWf f ^'* le same aut bor observes that nothing conduces so much to they ot Scotch pine wood, ns the exposure of the tree while growing.

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