Editor s Box. iqq 



we to believe ? I say that Ave can believe both ; for injustice to Mr. Smith 

 I can testify that the quality of spruce timber on this estate corresponds 

 exactly with the low estimate which he has formed of it. It is short in 

 the grain, it rots very quickly, and in no case is it ever used except for 

 the roughest boarding or fencing ; and the simple explanation of this 

 difference is that the quality of spruce timber varies exceedingly in 

 different localities. In the north of Scotland it appears the climate and 

 soil produce a compact, durable timber, while here, and I have no doubt 

 in other places also, it is the reverse. It is a well-known fact that the 

 quality of ash differs considerably, even within the bounds of a single 

 estate, and I have no doubt that this applies in thesame way in accounting 

 for the differences of experience in regard to spruce timber. 



Robert Baxter, 

 Forester. 

 Dalkeith Park. 



PRICES OF TIMBER. 



Sir, — In the last number of the Journal I sec parties calhug in question 

 the prices reported to have been obtained for certain classes of trees. I can 

 easily understand how such high prices are got for first class and large trees, as 

 in the case of a first class horse or cow ; but how the price of an acre of 

 larch in Kent so far exceeds that of our Scotch counties, is entirely beyond 

 my comprehension. Mr. Duff, Forester, Bayham Abbey, reports to the 

 Scotch Arboricultural Society that he sold larch ten years planted at the 

 enormous sum of £72 per imperial acre, and says he heard on good authority 

 that £100 was obtained on a neighbouring estate for a fifteen years crop, and 

 asks, What sys tem of forestry can equal that 1 I answer none, except that 

 famous one of Mr. Brown's, by which he says he sold the crop for £509 odd 

 per acre, being equal to three times that obtained by any other forester of 

 the present day, excepting Mr. Duff. But speaking advise Ily, I say that in 

 both cases the pric3s;are only,imaginary, as £150 per acre for a crop of got d 

 timber sixty years of age, when no selections are made, is about the highest 

 figure obtained by any forester of the present day, themselves excluded. 

 I have made a reckoning at the prices reported to be obtained by Mr. Duff 

 for hop poles, and after allowing 170 plants per acre to have died or grown 

 deformed, and counting the remainder to have averaged thirteen feet in 

 length, and at an average of the four prices he names, viz., for ten, twelve > 

 fourteen, and sixteen feet poles, I find the mean price to be 17s. 5|d. per 

 100 as the selling price. This would give a return of about £59 8s. 7d 

 per acre, being £12 lis. 5d. short of his return in full, while I must 

 deduct fencing, draining, plants, and planting, as well as all subsequent 

 expenses in their after management. Keed I further expatiate upon such 

 a subject? or imagine for the reader the results likely to accrue? Ca 

 we, by only giving our employers a return of about £3 per acre^ 



