altitude of 1500 to 1700 feet. This is approximately the level at which they die out in Abernethy, Rothiemurchus, Glen Feshie, Glenavon, Invercauld, Birse, and Glen Tanar." When stalking on Ben Avon I saw with the telescope some pines in the upper part of Glen Derry which I supposed to be at an elevation of about 2000 feet, and Mr. Michie, who has seen these trees, thinks that this estimate is not far from the mark. (H.J.E.)
In Ireland the common pine grows with great vigour and beauty, the bark becoming bright red in colour and the leaves very glaucous. The tallest trees, which I have seen, are at Curraghmore, the seat of the Marquess of Waterford, where, near a stream, I measured one 110 feet high and 7 feet in girth; some, but difficult to measure accurately on account of their position in a dense wood, were probably 120 to 125 feet in height, the largest of these having a girth of 9 feet.
At Doneraile Court, Co. Cork, there are some fine pines, growing scattered in an oak wood, the largest of which I made 97 feet by 11½ feet, with a clean stem to 50 feet. These trees are supposed by local tradition to be of native origin, and are called Irish pines; but they have evidently been planted, and there is no means of determining whether they originated from seed collected in Kerry from aboriginal pines still existing there in the 18th century, or, as is more probable, from Scotch seed, as they are probably about the same age as the famous larches at this place, which are reputed to have been sent to Doneraile by the Duke of Atholl.
At Emo Park, Portarlington, there are many fine trees, the largest seen measuring 91 feet by 7½ feet and 88 feet by 9 feet 1 inch. There is also a splendid tree, growing near the gate of Mr. Walpole's beautiful garden at Mount Usher, on the Rossanagh property, which is 11 feet 9 inches in girth, and probably 80 feet in height. At Castledawson, Co. Derry, an old tree measures 80 feet in height by 11 feet 4 inches in girth, There are many fine trees scattered through Coollattin in Wicklow. These grow on moist boggy soil; and I measured two clean of branches to 60 feet, which were 87 feet in height, and 9 feet 5 inches and 8 feet 1 inch respectively in girth.
At Luttrelstown, near Dublin, Hayes[1] measured a "Scots fir, eighty-five years' growth from the seed, of 11 feet 6 inches in circumference, and another of very great height 11 feet 10 inches round." He gives several other instances of the rapid growth of the tree in Ireland.[2]
Mr. T.W. Webber, late Deputy Conservator of Forests in India, in the appendix to his book on, the Forests of Upper India, gives an interesting account of the growth of Scots pine in Ireland, the planting of which he strongly advocates. To the objection that home-grown timber is of inferior quality, he replies that the wood of Pinus sylvestris found in bogs in Ireland is often of great length and thickness, sound, fine-grained, solid and straight, and so excellent that it has been used by coach-builders as superior to Memel timber. Where such timber grew ages ago,
- ↑ Practical Essay on Planting, 133, 167 (1794).
- ↑ At Powerscourt an immense Scots pine was blown down by the great gale of February 1903, which I saw on the ground soon afterwards and which measured about 12 feet in girth, Some boards cut from the tree were kindly sent me by the late Lord Powerscourt, which show its growth to have been very rapid.' (H.J.E.)
