Gardening
Two pines
Penis Wood
Looking through the six volumes of Sir Herbert Maxwell's enchanting Memories of the Months I found, in the fourth series, of 1907, some random notes on Corsican pines. He wrote: It is recorded how Napoleon, himself a Corsican, insisted upon building battleships of timber from his native forests against the remonstrance of his admiralty. They floated all right and sailed verY well; it was only when they met British oak-built seventy-fours that the trouble began; for Corsican pine, like all kinds of deal, splinters badly under cannon fire, dealing death and wounds among gunners and seamen.
Re goes on to write: The Corsicans are most robust and healthy in the British climate, but they are not favourites with our foresters, such a large percentage die after Planting-out. They are deficient in fibrous roots, but this disadvantage may be overcome by deferring planting to the latest possible period in Spring. If Corsicans are planted in April when growth has started, or even during the hfl!'st fortnight of May, they take on as !undIY as Scots pines and grow away as If nothing had happened.
He was writing in Scotland, and Probably May would be rather late for planting South of the border; but authorities are agreed that they are difficult to trai-41ant, and r„_ecommend that plants of no more than a foot high should be put in. Corsican Pines are well adapted to maritime conditions being resistant to salt spray, flourishing on poor sandy soils, and making good \find-breaks. Once known as Pinus ..,(1.ric10, the tree is now called P. "Igro maritima. It is a fine landscape tree, the dense blackness of its , crown dramatic against blue sky and sailing clouds. The Scots Pine. P. sylvestris, is native to Britain and to much of Northern Europe including Scandinavia and Russia, where it is cultivated on a prodigious scale to produce 'deal' for joists and rafters, the better quality timber being used for shelves, doors and chimney pieces.
It is perhaps the finer tree for districts inland, where it also can reach to a hundred feet, but with a narrower spread. As it approaches maturity it sheds its lower branches and assumes its characteristic outline ot tall reddish trunk, sparse branching and a noble crown. It is useful in mixed woods, making good high top-cover with oaks and Other trees to protect such exotics as camellias and rhododendrons from damage to their flowers by spring frosts.
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