426 EEPOET OX LAECH FOEESTS. 



at from twelve to fifteen feet apart, or about 280 trees per acre. 

 They ranged from 50 to 60 feet in height, and displayed a 

 justness of proportion, and a vigour that is seldom surpassed. 

 The very largest to be found measured 24 cubic feet, and were 

 fit for railway sleepers, and valued at 20s. each. The best Scotch 

 fir measured 15 cubic feet, but the average of both kinds was 

 far underneath these dimensions. The value per acre here was 

 estimated at from L.70 to L.75 as they stood, a price at which 

 the plantations could have readily been disposed of in lots of 

 twenty or thirty acres each. 



Now, it is to be observed that the difference in the present 

 value of the two plantations, viz. L.15, represents only a small 

 portion of the loss sustained by the management of the first- 

 mentioned plantation; for it could easily have yielded other 

 L.15 or L.20 for thinnings, even had they been removed at an 

 early age when the wood was of little value, which would have 

 had the effect of leaving the plantation much more valuable than 

 it now stands. But it is to the future of these plantations that 

 we must look for the difference in respect to the value of manage- 

 ment. The first, or crowded plantation, is not likely ever to- 

 become more valuable than it is at the present moment. The 

 trees in the other stand in the full vigour of early life, possessed 

 of ample foliage, and of that justness of proportion indispensable 

 to the most profitable growth or speedy formation of cubical 

 contents, with the prospect of yielding 100 trees during the 

 first twenty years, which may be estimated at not less than 

 L.60, leaving the plantation at the end of that period contain- 

 ing about 150 trees per acre, worth at least, on an average, 40s. 

 each. 



In looking at the future of the other plantation, our experience 

 only points to a loss in the case of its being allowed to stand 

 (as the interest of the present value would exceed the value of 

 its future growth), and to disease, and wind-fallen trees of little 

 comparative value. 



In the event of a clearance at once being made, there follows 

 the outlay of re-establishing the plantation — a work always diffi- 

 cult on ground where wood has been recently removed, expensive 

 and uncertain when surrounded with wood where vermin 

 abounds — consequently the difference in value of these two 

 plantations at the age of sixty years must be very great. Yet the 

 least remunerative is attended with great profit compared with 

 the yield of the waste land of similar quality throughout the 

 country. 



The ground of both plantations before planting was a common 

 heath or sheep pasture, and not worth more than Is. or Is. 6d. 

 per acre yearly. The formation of the plantations cost under 



