FORESTRY COMMISSION

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 100, 29 April 1913, Page 11

FORESTRY COMMISSION

/ TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— Having seen in your issue of 25th April a report of the evidence laid before the Forestry Commission by Mr. William Arthur Cumming, President of the Auck* land branch of the Institute of Architects, I beg to offer the following remarks : — Mr. Cumming states that Scotch fir, for instance, which throve admirably in Sweden, was a failure in England. The Scotch pine has never been grown extensively in England as a forest tree, but to Bay that it is a failure is an error, as I have cut, and sold, several specimens of the Scotch pine to a large builder in Essex, who stated to me that the quality of the tjmber was equal to any of the red I pine imported from the Baltic. The Scotch pine reproduces itself so freely on the outskirts of the New Forest, Hampshire, that the ( people with common rights set fire to the undergrowth to keep the pines from enoroaching on their grazing land. Scotch pine was extensively grown t in Scotland, the timber of whioh is superior to that imported, and I have seen and handled Scotch pine timber that had been ! in Castle Menzie for over three , hundred years, and was as Bound as a the day it was cut. Pinus Sylvestris is ■ the ' only variety of the pine tribe Which iis • truly indigenous to the British' Istes, and is j found growing freely 'through the north of Europe and in Asia, extending as far south in places aa Western Spain, Upper Italy, Asia Minor, and Persia. Mr. Curnmings did a commendable thing in advising that consideration be given to j soil, situation, and. climate, in the selection of trees suitable for re-afforestation. --I am, etc. . GUITHIS. ' 25th April, 1913.