262 REPORT ON THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF PLANTATIONS. 



of the trees was over 40 inches in girth, at 6 feet from the ground, 

 while the average girth of the general crop over the whole plan- 

 tation is about 12 inches. 



Shelter, as stated, was another object sought, but from the 

 manner in which the trees are grown, little shelter is thereby 

 afforded. The wind and storm, in place of being modified and 

 filtered, whistles through the lean defenceless shelter-belt with 

 almost undiminished violence, and, but for the turf-dykes with 

 which the plantation is enclosed, the snow would drift through it 

 with perfect freedom. 



Cover for game was also contemplated. As respects surface 

 cover, there has been almost none for many years ; with this, as 

 with shelter, the means employed to secure either are the means 

 by which they are destroyed. Live branches below half the 

 height of the trees are rare. Those which decayed were in some 

 places very properly removed from the trees by means of the 

 hand-saw, and carried out of the plantation, and burnt. 



The last, but most important of all objects, that of profit, is 

 even a more signal failure. The trees are now over forty years 

 growth, and with due care and attention when young, considering 

 the favourable situation, soil, climate, &c, ought to have been now 

 timber size, in other words, to contain four cubic feet of measure- 

 able timber each on an average. Instead of this, the great pro- 

 portion of the trees are below 3 inches diameter at 12 feet ; while 

 a considerable number are not quite 2| inches diameter at 6 feet 

 from the ground. 



A few years ago, a friend of the proprietors well acquainted 

 with woods, asked •the forester if this and some others of the 

 plantations of similar age were size enough for railway sleepers. 

 Both parties were much surprised — the gentleman at finding the 

 woods so far behind what he anticipated, and had great reasons 

 to expect ; the forester, at what he conceived premature expec- 

 tation. It soon became pretty generally known that this and 

 other plantations on the estate, nearly forty years planted, were 

 much below what they ought reasonably to have been under the 

 natural advantages they possessed. Little was known beyond 

 this, that thinning was universally recommended, right or wrong. 

 Now, while the want of timeous thinning was the certain cause of 

 the trees being so small, destitute of branches, and ill-proportioned 

 at that age, it by no means followed as a consequence that sub- 

 sequent thinning was to remedy such an evil. It is difficult to 

 state precisely the age at which thinning ceases to be beneficial 

 to plantations, and when, if continued beyond that age, it becomes 

 injurious. Suffice it to say, that the writer, in his experience in 

 thinning plantations grown exclusively for profit, is unable to 

 point out a single instance in which thinning pine or fir planta- 

 tions over thirty years planted has proved beneficial, and also 



