328 Method of ascertaining the Value 



I shall now briefly notice a few of the advantages to be 

 derived from the first Table. 



1st, Jhe first Table shows every fourth year, from twelve 

 years old to a hundred, the rates per cent, per annum at 

 which all trees increase, whether they grow fast or slow, 

 provided their rate of growth does not vary. This table may- 

 be the means of saving young thriving woods from being 

 cut down, by showing how great a loss is, sustained by fell- 

 ing timber prematurely *. 



2d, And it may be the means of bringing old trees to 

 market, by showing the smallness of the interest they pay 

 for the money they are worth, after they are 80. or 100 years 

 old. 



But this table shows the interest which they pay, only, 

 whilst the trees continue growing at their usual rate. In, 

 case they fall short only a little of their usual increase in 

 jlirt, this considerably diminishes the rate per cent, per an- 

 num of their increase. And trees do decrease in their rate 

 of growth before they ^appear to do so f. A pale and mossy 

 bark are certain indications of it. 



3d, The first Table may also assist the valuer of such 

 timber as is not to be cut down, but to continue growing, 

 by enabling him to estimate its present value more accurately 



* " A wood, near West Ward, in Cumberland, of more than 200 acres, 

 was felling in 1794, it was little more than SO years Qld. The whole was cut 

 away without leaving any to stand." See Miller's Gardener's Dictionary, last 

 edition^ under the Head of Woods. 



At 30 years old timber pays 10 per cent, for standing, and probably this 

 wood might have paid 7 per cent, per annum on an average for the next 80 

 years. 



f In Mr. Pringle's Agricultural Report cf Westmoreland h a paper of tfce 

 Bishop of Landaff's, stating, "That a very fine oak, of 82 years growth, 

 measured in circumference at six feet from the ground, on the 27th of Gc-? 

 tober 1792, 107 inches, and on the same day of the same month in 1793, it 

 measured 108 inches." He then states the interest it paid to be only about 

 2 per cent., and says this tree was a singularly thriving one. It is evident 

 that, with all this appearance of thriving, it was on the decline. For if we 

 divide 108, its inches in circumference, by 82, its age, we find its average 

 annual increase had been one inch and a third. Its falling off to one inch re- 

 duced the rate per cent, of increase one-fourth. 



tha& 



