of Fontainbleau, visited constantly by many of the visitors to Paris. The forest of Fontainbleau covers an area of about 64 square miles. But it by no means corresponds with the idea generally entertained of a forest; it is anything but an old, shadowy, leafy, and almost impervious forest. To quote the description given of it by Mangin: "Despite its enormous trees, its rudely broken surface, its stags and roebucks, reserved for imperial sport; despite its few adders and problematical vipers, it is now little better than a rendezvous for amateur artists and listless idlers. Its well-kept avenues resound with rapid wheels, and you can scarcely stir a step without finding the associations of the place interrupted by the stalls of vendors of cakes, or the apparatus of itinerant gamblers-a profanation to be regretted, for the forest exhibits many landscapes of surpassing interest in the rocks of Franchart, the glens of Apremont, and, above all, that Sahara in miniature, the sands of Arbonne."

An article by M. Clavé in the Revue des Deux Mondes for May, 1863, on La Forêt de Fontainbleau, contains much valuable and interesting information in regard to this forest, and in regard to matters connected with it. "Oaks," says he, " mingled with birches in due proportion, may arrive at the age of five or six hundred years in full vigour, and they attain dimensions which I have never seen surpassed; when, however, they are wholly unmixed with other trees they begin to decay, and die at the top at the age of forty or fifty years, like men old before their time, weary of the world, and longing to quit it. This has been observed in most of the oak plantations of which I have spoken, and they have not been able to attain to full growth. When the vegetation was perceived to languish, they were cut, in the hope that the new shoots would succeed better than the original trees; and, in fact, they appeared to be recovering for the first few years. But the shoots were attacked with the same decay, and the operation had to be renewed at shorter and shorter intervals, until at last it was found necessary to treat as coppice-woods plantations originally designed for the full grown system. Nor was this all the soil, periodically bared by those cuttings, became impoverished, and less suited to the growth of the oak. It was then proposed to introduce the pine, and plant with it the vacancies and glades. . . By this means the forest was saved from the ruin which threatened it, and now more than 10,000 acres of pines from fifteen to thirty years old are disseminated at various points, sometimes intermixed with broad-leaved trees, sometimes forming groves by themselves."

The soil of the forest of Fontainbleau is composed almost entirely of sand, interspersed with ledges of rock. The sand forms ninetyeight per cent. of the earth, and it is almost without water; it would be a drifting desert but for the trees growing and artifically propagated upon it.

In reference to such superficial sand formations, the following remarks are made by Wessley:

"It is scarcely to be supposed that all inland sand drifts have been lying exposed, and drifted about since anti-diluvian times. On the contrary, we find almost everywhere that diluvial sands, by a slow but ever advancing natural process, become gradually covered. with herbage, and ultimately with bush or forest, whereby they become so fixed as to be unmoved by the wind. And this process goes on all the more rapidly if man do not disturb it-if he do not promote it.

"And what has been effected thus in pre-historic times, is both denser and more during that what has been effected in later years: as the soil of that is richer in humus than is any planted by the hand of man. And these oldest plant-bearing sands may be described, as we sometimes describe nations, as the aboriginal vegetation of the ground on which they are found." Such seems to be the case with the oak forest of Fontainbleau.

Other forests growing indigenously on sands of the tertiary formation might be cited; but it is considered that one case of such is sufficient to show that forests may be produced and grow permanently on sands, and to give some idea of appearances produced by these.

What was at one time in the world's history, the natural state of these lands of La Sologne, a country more or less covered with forest trees, is what sylviculture is seeking to reproduce there, and to produce artificially on the Landes of Gascony and elsewhere; and what has been effected by self-sown seed may be effected again by artificial culture, if the natural history of the trees employed be known.

We have seen the good effect with which this has been done in Belgium, and on the Landes of the Gironde and of Gascony; and with what similar effect it has been done on the Landes of La Sologne. By Jules Clavé, a student of forest science of world-wide fame, it is stated in a paper in the Revue des Deux Mondes for March, 1866, that the district of Sologne, flat and marshy as it is, was salubrious until its forests were felled. It then became pestilential, but of late years its healthfulness has been restored with its forest plantations.

Uor M

CHAPTER IX.

NATURAL HISTORY AND GENERAL CULTURE OF THE SCOTCH FIR IN

FRANCE.

Or the trees spoken of as cultivated on the sand-wastes of France, the principal are the maritime pine (pinus maritima), and the Scotch fir (pinus sylvestris), the former on the new dunes and drift sands of the coast, the latter on the more consolidated old sand-wastes of the tertiary formation in the interior of the country. Besides these have been mentioned several varieties of the oak, the birch, and the chestnut, as grown on spots of greater or lesser extent within these sand-wastes; and in other countries a much greater variety of trees are raised upon sands and sandy soil. But it is the pine plantations

alone of which this volume treats.

Mention has also been made of the modern system of forest management having been adopted in France; the Fachwerke Methode of Hartig and Cotta, known in France as La méthode des compartiments, whereby are secured in combination a sustained production of material by the forest, a progressive improvement of the state of the forest, and a natural reproduction of it from self-sown seed. As this method of forest management, now practised generally on the continent of Europe, and of late years introduced into the management of forests in the Indian Empire, differs entirely from the system known as Jardinage, followed in some of our colonies, and in what are called policies in Britain, and from the method a tire et aire, previously practised in France, resembling in some respects the method adopted with plantations of coniferous trees in Scotland, the following details are given in view of its application to the different species of pine trees grown on the sand-wastes of France.

And on the assumption that it may be more acceptable to my readers, as well as in more perfect keeping with all besides advanced in the volume, that I should give the natural history of the trees mentioned as this is given in France than as it is given elsewhere, I shall follow this course.

Of the Pinus Sylvestris, the Pin Sylvestre of France, M M., Lorentz, and Parade, wrote in a volume entitled, Cours élémentaire de culture

des Bois créé a l'Ecole Forestière de Nancy. "This tree, the Pinus sylvestris, of Linnæus, is known under numerous names-the wild pine, the pine of the north, of Riga, of Hagenau, and of Geneva, the pinasse, &c., and it is one of which the red pine or Scotch pine is only a variety, recognisable by its shorter leaves, by its cones being smaller and grouped in whorls, and by the reddish tinge of its young shoots. It constitutes the principal tree in a great many forests of considerable extent in which it is found mixed with the oak and birch.

"Climate, Situation, and Exposure.—The temperate climates are those in which it manifests greatest vigour of growth; but cold countries are not inimical to it, for in the north of Europe, in Russia more especially, and in Sweden, it acquires most valuable qualities and dimensions, and by itself alone covers great extents of country. It grows on the plain as well as on slopes; but high elevations do not suit it. In these situations the snow and hoar-frost accumulate in great quantities on its leaves, and that to a greater degree than on the other resinous trees of cold countries, whereby often branches are torn off, and sometimes the trunk itself is broken.

"It succeeds on all exposures, not exclusive of the full south, when it is undertaken to replenish wide spaces, or deteriorated forests with a south exposure. It is a tree greatly in demand, not only because it is satisfied with a poor and dry soil, but because the young plants better sustain the sun's heat than do those of the other coniferae." But they remark that in saying this they are only speaking of the more temperate districts of France; that the departments in the south of France have other trees which grow there, such as the maritime pine, and the Alleppo pine; and that it is probable that the pin sylvestre would succeed ill there unless at elevations at which the heat is less intense. It is mentioned that in the Pyrenees it is found at an altitude of 1,200 mètres.

Terrain, or Soil.-It demands a deep light soil, it is found even on sand entirely devoid of cohesion, and the wood produced on such ground is of better quality than is that grown on more substantial soil; compact earths are unfriendly to it; and, although it does succeed on marls, its growth on these is much inferior to what it is on silicious ground.

"It is sometimes found on moist and turfy spots; but its vegetation there is in a languishing condition, and it there presents itself ordinarily in so peculiar an aspect that it has been taken for a totally different species of tree.

66

Flowering and Fructification.—The flowers are monaceous; they appear in April or in May, according to the temperature.

"The strobile or cone remains very small during the first year of its appearance. In the following spring it begins to enlarge, and it attains its full development towards the end of summer. It is ripe in the beginning of November; but it does not open its scales to allow the seed to escape until the spring following, so it requires in all at least eighteen months to ripen, or about two years to mature and drop the seed.

"The first warmth of the spring acts on the cones; the scales open without detaching themselves from the axis, and thus they allow the seed to escape; this is small and winged.

"The tree attains its complete fertility towards the fortieth its age; the fruit appears about every two or three years.

year of

"Young Plants.-These are very robust from their first appearance; but they do not stand a protracted shade. In general they may be reared without shelter; but on ground which is very dry, or with a complete southern exposure, it would be beneficial to have them shaded during the first year of their growth.

"Leafage. The leaves are somewhat long; but as they rarely remain on the tree above three years, it follows that it creates only a lightish shade.

"Roots.—These are strong and disposed to bury themselves. When the soil permits the tap-root descends a mètre or more, although a less depth can suffice to ensure the tree a pretty fine vegetation. In ground which is moist, or poor, or deficient in depth, the tap-root disappears almost entirely, and the lateral roots run along the surface and manifest a disposition, as do some other coniferae, to introduce and fix themselves in the fissures of rocks; but this superficial growth of the roots is not so favourable to the growth of the tree.

"Growth and Longevity.-The vegetation is very rapid from the first years of its growth; when the soil is adapted to it, it lengthens sometimes in its youth a mètre or more per annum. It lives for 200 years, and attains to a height of 33 mètres and more, with a diameter of from 1 mètre to 1 mètre 20 centimètres at the base."

I have met with few trees more extensively diffused over Europe than is this. I have met with it in different countries under different names, but the tree was the same, and the botanical designation everywhere the same. The specific sameness of varieties or subvarieties presenting very different appearances, has been demonstrated by M. de Vilmorin, on property belonging to him at Barres, in the