REPORT ON THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF PLANTATIONS. 263 



his inability to show a subject thinned, over forty years planted, 

 in which thinning has not had an injurious effect, both in respect 

 to the health of the general crop and also as tending to lower the 

 highest attainable value of the crop. 



No separate account having been ever kept of the expenses 

 entailed in thinning this or any one of the plantations upon 

 the estate, a correct statement cannot now be given. In 1848 

 a considerable portion was thinned, which occupied eight to 

 ten men the greater part of the summer; but being in patches 

 in various places throughout the plantation, no definite state- 

 ment can be given of the cost per acre, or of the number of trees 

 thinned out. 



The thinnings were cleared out of the plantation by men and 

 horses. Narrow roads were cleared, and the thinnings laid in 

 them in heaps, — as many in each as a horse could draw by means 

 of a chain fastened round them. Four to five lots per day were 

 cleared-out of the plantation, containing from one to one and a-half 

 cart loads each. These lots cost in clearing out of the plantation, 

 exclusive of cutting, about 2s. each, and sold by auction at from 

 Is. to Is. 6d. each lot ; thus not only was there nothing left to 

 the proprietor for the thinnings, but an additional expense in- 

 curred against the plantation. 



The uses to which the thinnings were applied were either for 

 fuel by the cottagers in the district, or in forming temporary 

 fences upon the farms, such as dividing grass and pasture fields ; 

 the tenants upon the estate, however, being supplied by the pro- 

 prietor with a superior class of fencing wood, found very little 

 use for the former description of wood. Subsequent thinnings 

 were used almost exclusively upon the estate for fencing pur- 

 poses ; within the last twelve years a considerable quantity of 

 paling-wood, posts, &c, were thinned out of it. 



The cutting and branching of the trees was done by the pro- 

 prietor's men, but the tenants carried out of the plantation and 

 carted to the saw-mill the wood used by them. The largest and 

 straightest of the trees were used for rails, and the shorter and 

 inferior class for posts of various sizes. 



The stakes, 3 to 4 inches in diameter at small end, were sold 

 at about Id. per lineal foot, and the rails, 4 x 1^, at about one 

 farthing per lineal foot. These prices include carting, sawing, 

 stacking, &c, which, when all expenses are deducted, there is 

 left to the proprietor about one farthing per lineal foot for the 

 wood growing in the plantation. 



One farthing per lineal foot is what the proprietor obtains for 

 his wood of this size and description, when disposed of to the 

 tenants upon the estate for fencing. The following statement in 

 detail will show this more fully : — 



