covered with impenetrable forests for many centuries; till an enterprising individual conceived the daring idea of conveying the pines from the top of the mountain to the Lake of Lucerne, a distance of nearly nine miles, by means of an inclined plane, extending the whole distance. This extraordinary contrivance, which was completed in 1812, became an object of wonder to all Europe, and was called the slide of Alpnach, from the name of the Commune in which it was situated. The Slide was a trough, formed of 25,000 pine trees, six feet broad, and from three to six feet deep; this was kept moist. Its length was 44,000 English feet. It had to be conducted in an undeviating line over the summits of rocks, or along their sides, or under-ground, or over deep gorges, where it was sustained by scaffoldings; and thus innumerable difficulties presented themselves in its construction. The perseverance of the engineer, M. Rupp, overcame all obstacles; and in eighteen months his work was finished. The trees descended from the mountain into the lake with an incredible rapidity. The larger pines, which were about one hundred feet long, ran through the space of eight miles and a third in about six minutes. A gentleman, who saw this great work, informed us, that such was the velocity with which a tree of the largest size passed any given point, that he could only strike it once with a stick as it rushed by, however quickly he attempted to repeat the blow. The markets of the Baltic being opened by the peace, the speculation was abandoned as unprofitable; and the Slide of Alpnach fell into ruin*.

The advantages derived from planting pines in those upland and healthy parts of the country, which can scarcely be turned to any other profitable purpose, are very many. They form a shelter to the little patches of land that are susceptible of cultiva* See Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1820.

tion. The thinnings (for pines should be planted very close together at first) are well adapted for fuel, for palings, and many other domestic purposes. The leaves, as they fall off, destroy the heath and other hard plants, which are succeeded by mosses and grasses, the remains of which, when ploughed into the soil, make it susceptible of bearing crops either of grain or of green vegetables; and the timber at last, after paying all its expenses by the repeated thinnings, furnishes a better rent than could be obtained by any other means. In order to secure these advantages, it is necessary that the soil should be properly chosen; for we have seen instances in which, during thirty years, the average increase of the trees in height has hardly been an inch, while, in situations not particularly unfavourable, it might not be much less than thirty feet. It is fortunate, however, that those places which do not agree with the common pine are generally well adapted for the larch; and in the very instances to which we have alluded, a row of larches, planted simultaneously with the pines, are now of more feet in height than the pines are of inches. So that if the planter finds his pines will not thrive, which he can soon do by observing the turpentine exuding through the leaves and buds, and covering them like hoar frost, he ought immediately to root them out and replace them with larches. In like manner, when the larch exhibits this appearance on the leaves, and especially on the branches, it will never come to maturity. Care must be taken, however, not to mistake the pollen for this disease. The pollen appears only when the male flowers are in bloom; it has a tinge of yellow, and it seldom adheres to the leaves, and never to the branches; whereas the turpentine is white and efflorescent, adheres to the twigs and leaves, and cannot be shaken off without difficulty.

F

As an evidence of the advantages resulting from the cultivation of pines, we may mention a portion of Culloden Muir, near to the spot where the battle was fought, in 1746. It slopes to the north-east, and is exposed to the cold blasts of the Moray Firth. The subsoil is a deep bed of clay-and-sand gravel; and the surface, where not planted, very barren, with not more than an inch of mould, and that of the very worst quality. A portion was inclosed and planted, about seventy years ago, by the celebrated Lord President Forbes. The successive thinnings had more than repaid the inclosing and planting; and when the timber was cut down, about twenty years since, it yielded several times as much rent per acre, for every year it had stood, as the unplanted part of the muir let for at the time when it was cut down.

Large plantations of pines have been made in England during the last thirty years; and thus some of our barren lands, which were formerly utterly worthless, have become valuable additions to the national wealth. Sometimes these plantations have been formed without due investigation; and through this, some species of fir, which are useless except for fuel, have been raised in large quantities. On the other hand, the properties of the several species have been accurately studied by some planters; and experiments upon a large scale have been made, to determine the relative value of the various sorts. At Dropmore, in Buckinghamshire, a place which, thirty years ago, was a most desolate and barren heath, Lord Grenville has formed the most valuable fir plantations; and he has established a garden of the genus pinus, in which he has collected almost every known species from all quarters of the globe. The late Bishop Heber, who was honoured with the friendship of that justly venerated nobleman, had a commission from him to search out any new species of the pines of

India; and the following extract of a letter from this amiable prelate, addressed to his Lordship, giving an account of the pines of the Himalaya mountains, will shew the solicitude with which he discharged his

trust:

"A visit which I paid to those glorious mountains, in November and December last, was unfortunately too much limited by the short time at my disposal, and by the advanced season, to admit of my penetrating far into their recesses; nor am I so fortunate as to be able to examine their productions with the eye of a botanist. But, though the woods are very noble, and the general scenery possesses a degree of magnificence such as I had never before either seen or (I may say) imagined, the species of pine which I was able to distinguish were not numerous. The most common is a tall and stately, but brittle, fir, in its general character not unlike the Scottish, but with a more branching head, which, in some degree, resembles that of the Italian pine. Another, and of

less frequent occurrence, is a splendid tree, with gigantic arms and dark narrow leaves, which is accounted sacred, and chiefly seen in the neighbourhood of ancient Hindoo temples, and which struck my unscientific eye as very nearly resembling the cedar of Lebanon. But these I found flourishing at near nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and where the frost was as severe at night as is usually met with at the same season in England. But between this, which was the greatest height that I climbed, and the limit of perpetual snow, there is doubtless ample space for many other species of plants, to some of which a Dropmore winter must be a season of vernal mildness."

The pines of the Himalaya mountains were found at the height of nine thousand feet above the level of the sea. The elevation at which the pine grows in

tropical countries is very remarkable. Humboldt describes the third zone of the Peak of Teneriffe, the region of firs, as at nine hundred toises of absolute height (about five thousand seven hundred and sixty feet); and he says that, in the Cordilleras of New Spain, under the torrid zone, the Mexican pines reach as high as two thousand toises (about twelve thousand eight hundred feet).

The SILVER FIR (Pinus picea), so called from two lines of white on the under side of the leaves, is a majestic tree, and grows with great rapidity. It is a native of the south of Europe and the Levant, the silver firs upon mount Olympus being the most magnificent trees in that country. Requiring a richer soil and a warmer climate than the pine and the larch, it cannot be so well cultivated in bleak situations as those species. The timber which it produces is softer and less durable than that of either of them; and, therefore, it is not so well adapted for general purposes: but its lightness renders it a very fit material for boats, and planks made of it are said to have the property of not shrinking. It has been introduced into this country, as an ornamental tree, for more than a century; but it has not been hitherto, and probably never will be, extensively cultivated for profit. Nearly allied to the Silver Fir, though inferior to it as a grower, is the Balm of Gilead Fir (Pinus balsamea). It is a native of America; but although it has been in this country for more than a century and a half, the only place where it has grown, even to moderate dimensions, is Woburn Abbey.