514 PICEA PECTIN ATA. [Dec. 



meut into timber of this valuable conifer. He found it in his own 

 experience a far more profitable tree, at an altitude of upwards of 

 1000 feet above sea-level on the slope of the Grampian Hills, than 

 either larch or Scots fir of the same age growing in the same planta- 

 tion, which was about forty years old. With his usual urbanity and 

 desire to afford further information on any important arboricultural 

 question within his knowledge, Mr. M'Corquodale has kiiidly 

 informed the writer of his experience of the silver fir on the Lynedoch 

 estates under his charge. There we find many magnificent specimens 

 of large dimensions. Measured in 1878, the largest tree was 110 

 feet high, with a splendid straight bole, girthing 1 3 feet 1 inches 

 at 3 feet from the ground, and containing 425 feet of timber in the 

 bole alone. 



" Mr. M'Corquodale further communicates a very interesting and 

 important trial he has been permitted to make in regard to the 

 suitability of the silver fir for use as railway sleepers. In April 

 1877, when part of the Highland Eailway near Luncarty Station was 

 being relaid with new sleepers of Baltic timber, he was allowed to 

 lay four well-seasoned silver fir sleepers, cut from a tree on the 

 Logiealmond estate, alongside the sleepers of foreign timber, and 

 the test has hitherto been very satisfactory ; periodical visits annu- 

 ally to the spot, and examination of both descriptions of sleepers, 

 induce the belief that, to all appearance, the test of tear and wear 

 and durability is in favour of the home timber. It were well that 

 this experiment should be tried on a larger scale, and in different 

 localities, so as to afford a better average of the suitability of silver 

 fir timber for this highly important department of commercial 

 application ; for doubtless, if the trials should prove satisfactory, as 

 we have every reason to suppose they would do, the future value of 

 the silver fir would be largely enhanced, and greater attention be 

 paid to its more extended cultivation in suitable situations throughout 

 the country. 



" In other districts than Perthshire, the capability of the silver 

 fir for producing good wood of more scantling, in a given space of 

 time, than either spruce, Scots fir, or larch, has been demonstrated. 

 At Springkell, Dumfriesshire, at an altitude of 260 feet, and in 

 light soil, it far exceeds the growtli of these. One silver fir, blown 

 down there in the Tay Bridge gale of 1879, contained upwards of 

 80 cubic feet of timber in the bole, and had been only sixty- two 

 years planted. Similar examples might be instanced from Black- 

 adder, Berwickshire ; Portmore, Peeblesshire ; Blair - Drummond, 

 Perthshire ; and Penicuik, Midlothian, etc. At this last-named 

 place some very notable examples occur. In a plantation near the 

 lodge, one tree is found 1 1 feet 7 inches in girth at 5 feet, and 1 3 



