253 DEPORT ON THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF PLANTATIONS. 



The Scots pines are of two classes, either slender, with few 

 branches, or coarse and badly grown, many of them bent and 

 crooked, being so disposed from others overcrowding them. 



The hardwoods are still in a backward condition, having by 

 far too few branches upon them, which will ultimately result 

 either in retarded growth at an early age, or in tall slender trees, 

 unable to bear the elements of wind and storm. 



Owing to the suitable quality of the soil, and other circum- 

 stance, reasonable hopes might have been entertained of a good 

 and profitable crop of timber from No. 2. This, it is quite 

 apparent, will not be the case. What, then, is the cause or 

 causes of failure ? In what does it consist ? And what is the 

 preventative or remedy ? 



The causes of failure are numerous, but the chief one is 

 that of mixing trees together that should always be grown separ- 

 ately, they being uncongenial and antagonistic in their natural 

 habits of growth. The soil being naturally damp, a free cur- 

 rent of air and the direct rays of the sun are essential to 

 evaporate the noxious vapours and impart life to the languish- 

 ing trees. Unfortunately the very reverse of this was the 

 case, the crowded condition of the trees precluding both sun 

 and air. 



Thinning in this case should have been performed at five years 

 on the west side of the plantation, and at six years on the opposite 

 side. Part of the latter is composed of a large proportion of 

 Scots pines, standing upon the ground to the number of about 

 1500 trees per acre. Some of the trees, indeed, though now 

 fourteen years planted, are standing not more than 4 feet apart, 

 12 to 16 feet in height, with stems not over 8 to 10 inches girth 

 at the ground, thus exhibiting an unfavourable example in thin- 

 ning to be carefully and timeously avoided. Trees of the above 

 age so situated should not, if properly thinned, be standing 

 closer than 7 feet to 8 feet apart. The cost in thinning at six 

 years planted is about 5s. per acre, whereas now it will cost twelve 

 times that sum. 



In thinning at five or six years planted, the thinnings are, of 

 course, of little or no value, consequently the labour bestowed is 

 a dead loss of 5s. per acre. In thinning at eight or ten years 

 planted, the thinnings, as in this instance, are worth 14s. 7|-d. 

 per acre, but then the cost of labour was 40s. per acre, thus show- 

 ing that in point of economy the former period is to be preferred, 

 while the advantages resulting to the future crop cannot be 

 over estimated. 



The results arising from deficiency of branches on Scots pine is 

 seen at a comparatively early stage of their growth, while the full 

 amount of injury which hardwoods sustain from a similar cause 

 are not fully shown till the trees are from forty to fifty years 



