Except the birch, the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) is more widely distributed over northern Europe than any other species of tree, and it shows more indifference than any other to variations of climate. While in Eastern Siberia it sustains without flinching a temperature of 40° below zero (Fahr.), it thrives in Southern Spain under a summer heat of 95°. It seems as much at home in the sun-baked region of Southern France as it is in the perennially humid atmosphere and cool soil of Western Scotland and Ireland.

Yet there are limits to its cosmopolitan endurance. Not long ago I spent a profitable day in the Arnold Arboretum at Boston, Massachusetts, under the guidance of its presiding genius, Professor C. S. Sargent. After wandering for hours amid the luxuriant vegetation of that magnificent park, we stopped beside a mangy, stunted conifer, and he asked me whether I recognised it. I did not; but guessed at hazard that it was the Japanese Pinus parviflora. I was surprised to be told that this was the best that could be done in that country with our own Scots pine. From causes difficult to define, probably similar to those which prohibit the growth of our common ivy in the Eastern United States, this tree resists all attempts to make it at home in that atmosphere.

It may seem strange that this tree should be known as the Scots pine, having regard to its enormous geographical range and to the insignificant area which it occupies in Scotland as compared with the vast forests in Russia, Scandinavia, and other countries. Its scientific title, Pinus sylvestris—the forest pine—would appear more appropriate. But it has received its English name because, although at one time it was spread as a native over all parts of the British Isles, it is now only to be found in a truly wild state in the fragments of old forest remaining in Strathspey, Deeside, and here and there in the counties of Inverness and Perth. From England probably it had entirely disappeared when, in the seventeenth century, certain landowners succeeded in reintroducing it; and now it has attained splendid proportions in Surrey and other southern counties, and spreads freely by its winged seeds wherever these fall on unoccupied lands. Were it not for deer, sheep, and rabbits, most of our dry moors and heathland would be covered with pine forest up to the thousand feet level. Howbeit, most of the moorland in the United Kingdom is the reverse of dry. Except in Eastern Scotland and the Surrey uplands, it is usually clad with a dense coat of wet peat, reeking with humic acid and inimical to tree growth of any kind. One of the darkest enigmas of natural science is presented in the remains of pine forest buried under such a dismal treeless expanse as the Moor of Rannoch, and on Highland hills up to and beyond 2000 feet altitude, far higher than any tree can exist now. The explanation seems most likely to be arrived at in the direction indicated by certain symptoms of the alternation of periods of greater and less rainfall—periods comprising thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years. Trees, it has been suggested, might grow and reproduce themselves at high altitudes during the drier cycles; but when the rainfall and atmospheric humidity increased beyond a certain degree, the soil would become covered with moss, seedlings would be smothered or never start, and humic acid would render the ground unfit for any growth except heather and moorland herbs.

Diligent collectors and enterprising nurserymen have ransacked the remotest forests to furnish British woodlands with profitable timber-producers and British pleasure-grounds with ornamental trees; yet among all the scores of exotic conifers which have taken kindly to our ocean-girt land, the Scots pine, in my judgment, need fear no rival in beauty after reaching maturity.

It is not a little remarkable, considering how well adapted our moist climate is for evergreen growth, that the Scots pine and the juniper should be the only two conifers indigenous to Britain since the glacial age. (The yew used to be classed as coniferous, but has now been removed to a separate order.) The Norway spruce, as shown by remains in pre-glacial deposits in Norfolk, once flourished in our land; but it has never recovered a footing there since the severance of Britain from the Continent.

No tree shows a greater difference than Scots pine in the quality of its timber at different stages of growth. Unlike larch, which yields useful and durable wood from a very early age, Scots pine is very soft and perishable until the tree approaches eighty years old. It is true that young deals and posts may be rendered serviceable by boiling in creosote; but it is not until the tree reaches maturity that the timber becomes valuable, without that treatment, for anything except pit-props.

In 1783 Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon, sold a great breadth of the pine forest of Glenmore to an English merchant, who took twenty-two years to fell it. The logs were floated down the Spey, and built at Speymouth into forty-seven ships of an aggregate burthen of 19,000 tons. When Mr. Osborne, the purchaser of the timber, finished his work in 1806, he sent a memorial plank to the Duke, which now stands in the entrance hall of Gordon Castle. It measures 5 feet 5 inches in width at the butt end, and 4 feet 4 inches at the top, and is of a rich dark brown colour. The top of this magnificent tree lies where it was cut off more than one hundred years ago, on the hill above Glenmore Lodge, 1400 feet above the sea, and is still hard and sound, 3 feet in diameter where it was cut off. Now, had that been part of a tree, say, fifty years old, frost and wet would have rotted it to the core in ten years or less; but the snows and rains of a century have made little impression on the bones of this giant. Mr. Elwes was shown a tree in the King's Forest of Ballochbuie, on Deeside, which had been cut up after lying for seventy years where it fell, yet the timber was quite sound.

Age apart, the value of Scots deal varies much according to the manner in which it is grown. It is not the most picturesque pines that yield the finest timber; for the result of growing singly or in scattered groups is a spreading branchy habit, causing coarse, knotty wood. Enormous quantities of Scots pine from Scandinavia and pinaster from France, twenty to thirty-five years old, are imported into Great Britain for pit-props. These might be just as well grown in the British Isles, to the great advantage of rural employment; but British foresters are only now beginning to understand the economic management of timber crops. The great majority of woodlands in these islands have been ruined by over-thinning. Welsh mineowners decline to use the knotty British-grown pines so long as they can get clean-grown French timber.

Happily, a better understanding of the principles of economic forestry is being arrived at in this country, so that more satisfactory results may be expected in the future. Scots pine should be grown in close canopy—that is, with a continuous cover of foliage throughout the wood—until the trees are seventy or eighty years old. By that time long, clean boles will have been formed, and the forest may be dealt with according to the views of the owner, whether his object be profit or beauty; for, unlike the oak, the Scots pine may be isolated from his fellows after reaching maturity without suffering in constitution.

The mildness and humidity of the British climate are unfavourable to the production of the best quality of deal, promoting, as they do, over-rapid growth and, in consequence, wide annual rings in the stem. The forester's object should be to check this by growing the trees so close that increase of trunk diameter may be retarded, and the annual rings crowded into small space until the trees are near maturity. That is the secret of the superior quality and durability of Russian and Scandinavian deals over all but the finest British pine.

Amateurs in landscape object to the scientific treatment of pine forest, complaining that it creates a tiresome monotony. It is quite true that a plantation of Scots pines of middle age is not an interesting subject of contemplation, except to foresters. Nevertheless, it is half-way to what may become one of the most impressive scenes in nature. The most beautiful tract of Scots pine forest I have ever seen is that which clothes the slopes of the Wishart Burn, near Gordon Castle. This was planted about 180 to 190 years ago, and it is evident that the trees have gone through strict discipline of close company in early life, for their trunks are lofty, perfectly clean and even, carrying their girth well up to the branches at 50 or 60 feet from the ground. The tallest tree measured by Mr. Elwes in this wood seven years ago was about 117 feet high, with a girth at breast height of 1 inch short of 11 feet. He estimated that it contained 345 cubic feet of timber. Many of the trees in this wood have been felled; but there remain about sixty to the acre—say, 6000 cubic feet per acre. They would be easily saleable standing at 6d. a foot, or £150 per acre.

As for landscape beauty, it would be difficult to imagine a fairer woodland scene than is composed by this company of aged pines. They do not stand so close now as to prevent one "seeing the wood for the trees"; the sun rays penetrate freely among the stately stems, which have that peculiar bloom of pearly rose that distinguishes the bark of old Scots pine. Aloft, the light flashes on the brighter hue of ruddy boughs supporting the massive foliage; below, the undulating ground, steep and rocky in places, is clothed with bilberry, fern, and other lowly growth. There is nothing gloomy or dreary in the scene, which he who visits it will not readily forget.

In Gaelic the name for the pine is giuthas (pronounced "gewuss," with a hard g). As is usual in the case of native trees, this word may be identified in many place-names both in Scotland and Ireland; albeit, sometimes pretty well disguised in modern orthography. Guisachan and Kingussie may be recognised pretty easily, the latter being cinn giuthasaich—"at the end or head of the pine wood"; but it requires some smattering of Gaelic speech to avoid the ornithological suggestion conveyed in the name Loch Goosie, in Kirkcudbright, and to interpret it correctly as "the loch of the pine wood."

I have remarked above that a mature Scots pine has no rival in beauty in the genus, and indeed the charming outline, blue-green foliage, ruddy branches and roseate grey trunk of a well-grown Scot of 150 years' growth can admit no superior in comeliness; but, on second thoughts, I must admit that it has a dangerous competitor in the Monterey pine (P. radiata syn. insignis). Native of an extremely limited range on the Californian coast, the first seedlings were raised in England in 1833. There are now several specimens recorded as over 100 feet in height. In rapidity of growth it excels all other pines, at least in the moist climate of the British Isles. One which I planted in 1884 at Monreith was blown down in 1911, and was found to be 61 feet 6 inches in height, with a girth of 5 feet 4 inches, certainly a remarkable growth in 27 years. If the timber were of a quality proportioned to the rapidity with which it is produced, the Monterey pine would indeed be a valuable tree, but our experience of it in this country differs in no respect from Sargent's report, viz. "Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, close-grained." If it were grown in sufficient quantity it might prove good for pulping, but it is of no other economic value. Moreover, this pine is only suitable for the milder parts of the United Kingdom—the south and west coasts of Great Britain and the whole of Ireland. Almost the only exception known to me is a tree at Keir, in Perthshire, which in 1905 was about 70 feet high, with a girth of 11 feet. This must be an individual of exceptional hardihood, for in most inland districts, except in Ireland, the Monterey pine has succumbed to frost. In maritime districts it is a most desirable tree, affording splendid shelter and gladdening the eye with its rich foliage of deep but brilliant green and rugged, massive trunk.

To describe, however briefly, all the exotic pines that have been successfully grown in the British Isles would fill a volume in itself. I cannot do more or better than refer the reader who desires the fullest information about them to the great work of Elwes and Henry wherein all particulars are given of about fifty different species. Yet I cannot refrain from mentioning one European species which I regard as qualified in large measure to supplant the Scots pine as a commercial asset in British woodland. I refer to the Corsican pine (P. laricio) and its varieties which, despite the insular title popularly given to the tree, cover a range extending from southern France and Spain to the Caucasus. Among these varieties, late authorities include the Austrian pine (P. austriaca), which, if it be botanically identical with the Corsican, is of very inferior merit for British planters. In extreme exposure it forms good shelter, but its habit is coarse and roughly branching, very different from the fine columnar growth of the Corsican. Moreover, there is this singular distinction between the two trees—one of no slight importance to foresters in our rodent-ridden land—that whereas hares and rabbits greedily devour young Austrian pines, they never touch the Corsicans; at least I have never known them injure one of tens of thousands which I have planted, though I have heard of newly-planted trees being attacked elsewhere under extreme stress of hard weather.

Dr. Henry has given a very full description of the pine forests of Corsica,[17] whence it appears that, owing to the excess of sapwood, the timber is of little value till the trees are 200 to 300 years old, at which age the trunks average only 3 feet in diameter. A forest tree which develops so slowly is not likely to find much favour with British foresters; and the fact that this pine grows faster in our islands than on its native mountains certainly does not lead one to expect a high quality of timber. I have, however, cut poles of Corsican pine thirty years old to support the galvanised roof of a hayshed. They averaged 8 inches in diameter at 5 feet from the ground, and were undoubtedly larger and finer than Scots pine of the same age growing among them, which I should never dream of using for such a purpose; but, as the shed has only been standing for three or four years, it is too early to regard this as a test. The merits of this pine already ascertained in this country are resistance to wind exposure, straight and rapid growth, and immunity from damage by ground game. These qualities render it most valuable for planting mixed with other trees, for which purpose I consider it superior to Scots pine. It requires, however, more considerate nursery treatment, for its root system is straggling; and planting out should be delayed till the middle of April and carried on till the middle of May. Observing this rule, I have found the percentage of loss after planting to be trifling, certainly not greater than with Scots pine; but the results are not so satisfactory in southern England on hot soils. The Corsican pine, however, demands all the light it can get, being extremely impatient of shade, whether overhead or alongside.

The great expectations formed about the Weymouth pine (Pinus strobus) when it was brought to England early in the eighteenth century have not been fulfilled. Known as the white pine of the North American lumber trade, it received its British designation from the extent to which it was planted by Lord Weymouth at Longleat. It is true that many fine specimens exist in several parts of these islands, notably that which was blown down in 1875 near Tortworth in Gloucestershire, measuring 122 feet high with 46 feet of clean bole; but as a forest tree it has never taken high rank with us, perhaps because, generally grown as a specimen, it has not been subjected to forest treatment, and the quality of the timber is ruined by the uprush of a number of competing tops. It was this habit that disfigured a Weymouth pine at Dunkeld which I measured in 1902 and found to be 13 feet 3 inches in girth at 4 feet from the ground, the clean bole being about 30 feet. I think this tree has since been blown down.

Far superior to the Weymouth pine in erect habit is the Western White pine (P. monticola), which, in other respects, resembles the other very closely. This would be a most desirable tree for use as well as ornament, but that it has proved susceptible to attacks of the rust-fungus (Peridermium strobi), an organism which requires to pass alternate generations on Ribes (currant). A number of fine P. monticola in the famous woods of Murthly, some of which were over 80 feet high in 1906, have perished under the agency of this parasite. On the west coast, however, this fungus does not seem to have made its appearance. Of two trees of this species which I planted in 1876, believing them to be Swiss stone pines (P. cembra), one is now a straight, shapely tree 57 feet high, with a girth of 5 feet 4 inches at 5 feet from the ground; and both have produced plenty of seed whence a large number of seedlings have been planted out.

No notice of the Pines, however fragmentary and superficial, could be justified if it did not include a reference to the Pinaster or Cluster Pine (Pinus maritima). British tourists on their journey to or from Biarritz, Pau, etc., can scarcely fail to have noticed the immense plantations of this tree through which the railway runs between Bayonne and Bordeaux. For nearly 100 miles the woodland is well-nigh continuous, consisting almost exclusively of this species, and covering an area of nearly two million acres "perhaps" says Mr. Elwes, "the most extensive forest ever created by the hand of man." Estimating the capital sunk in planting, road-making, etc., since 1855 at upwards of £2,000,000, M. Huffel put its value in 1904 at £18,000,000, the annual revenue from timber, turpentine and resin being then more than half a million sterling—equal to a rent of about 7s. an acre. In a wild state, the landes thus occupied were practically worthless for agriculture.

Although the pinaster is a native of the Mediterranean region, it agrees admirably with the soil and climate of the British Isles, thrusting its boughs out in the teeth of severe wind exposure, growing to great height and bulk and ripening abundant seed. Yet it is a despised tree with us, few landowners being at pains to plant it now, although a considerable number seem to have been planted about the end of the eighteenth century and early in the nineteenth.