210 ON THINNING PLANTATIONS. 



long. It does much good if done early, and equally mucli harm- 

 if done late. 



"The most valuable crop of oak timber I ever saw," says Mr 

 J. S., an extensive timber-merchant, "was upon the Duke of 

 Devonshire's property in that county, when the trees stood from 

 6 to 8 feet apart." The best I ever saw was a few acres of Scots 

 pine on Eothiemurchus estate. Strathspey, when the trees stood 

 from 2 feet to 15 feet apart. 



ON NATURAL COPPICE WOOD, OF OTHER SPECIES THAN OAK- 



By Andrew Gilchrist, Urie, Stonehaven. 



[Premium — Five Sovereigns.] 



At the present day, notwithstanding that more attention is 

 being paid, alike by proprietor and forester, to the science 

 and practice of arboriciilture than has ever been, there is still 

 room for further improvements in the economic management of 

 plantations, ere they become as remunerative as might be rea- 

 sonably expected, considering the skill and intelligence that is 

 being brought to bear upon them. 



A more extended and judicious system of conserving and rear- 

 ing natural coppice wood in plantations, is, we think, one of the 

 means whereby our Scottish woodlands may be brought to yield 

 a better return for the land occupied. At present there is a great 

 extent, probably, on an average, about a fourth part of the wood- 

 lands of Scotland, that yield little or no return per acre. 



This is not so much owing to mismanao-ement as to local 

 peculiarities, such as, for instance, a portion of an enclosure, after 

 say twenty-five years growth, owing to something deficient in 

 the soil, or peculiar in the situation, often yields a crop of three- 

 fourths less value than the rest of the plantation. In cases of 

 this kind, instead of allowing the whole extent of a plantation 

 to grow to the age of full sized timber, it would often consider- 

 ably increase the returns per acre to take two crops of coppice 

 instead of one very inferior crop of aged timber. We might 

 mention several examples of this kind that have come under our 

 own observation when clearing plantations. For example, in 

 clearing a 50 acre enclosure in the county of Forfar, the crop of 

 which consisted for the most part of larches and Scots fir, we 

 found about two acres of damp ground with a partial crop of 

 birches. Apparently only about one-half of the trees had been 

 planted at the time the plantation was formed; the others were 

 about twenty years old, and had gro^\^l from seed. It was 

 evident that during the last twenty years the planted birches 

 liad not been making so much progress in their growth as they 



