REPORT ON LARCH FORESTS. 40 



o 



conducted under very unpropitious circumstances, amongst which 

 may be mentioned the difficulty of obtaining plants, and the con- 

 sequent high prices. All the larch plants the duke was able to 

 obtain, between 1774 and 1783, amounted only to 279,000, and 

 cost (two years transplanted larch) 6d. per plant. After about 

 1780 the price of plants (two years transplanted) fell from 6d. 

 per plant to 35s. per 1000. From that time downwards the 

 prices have varied from 18s. to 12s. per 1000, according as the 

 crop was plentiful or scarce ; but the average price during the 

 last fifty years is considered 12s. 6d. per 1000. 



One of the causes of disappointment as to the pecuniary 

 returns of the larch arises out of the circumstance of too much 

 having been expected of it. In a report of the Athole larch, to 

 which reference has been already made, the duke expected to 

 realise £1000 per acre. "Suppose," says the report referred to, 

 " the plantations are thinned out by thirty years old to what they 

 are to stand for ship-timber — that is, to 400 trees per Scots 

 acre — suppose after that period the whole were cut down at the 

 following respective ages, the value of the whole per acre at the 

 different periods would be as follows : — ■ 



400 trees, 30 years old, at 2| cubic feet each tree = 1000 



cubic feet, or 20 loads, at Is. 6d. per foot, . L.75 

 400 trees, 43 1 years old, at 15 feet each tree 



= 6000 cubic feet, or 120 loads, at Is. 6d. 



per foot, . . . . 450 



400 trees, 59 years old, at 40 cubic feet each 



tree = 16,000 cubic feet, or 320 loads, at 2s. 



6d. per foot profit, . . . 2000 



400 trees, 72 years old, at 60 cubic feet each 



= 24,000 cubic feet, or 480 loads, at 2s. 6d. 



per cubic foot profit, . . . 3000 



The average of these prices would be L.1381, 5s. per acre, so that 

 L.1000 per acre is not too high, a calculation of the value of the 

 duke's larch plantations." 



A modern writer of considerable eminence, and whose au- 

 thority in general arboriculture is of no small weight, gives as 

 the result of his experience of a plantation in Mid-Lothian, at 

 sixty years old, a clmr profit of L.509, 17s. 4d. per acre. 

 Another author, still more modern, gives as his experience a 

 statement of a larch plantation at forty years old yielding a clear 

 profit of £548, 15s. per acre. 



With a belief in the preceding statements, any person finding 

 their larch plantations to come far short of them, are led to think 

 and speak of their own as a failure. The writer may here state 

 his own experience. He has not found any considerable crop of 

 larch in value within 50 per cent, of the preceding statements; and, 



