73^ The yournal of Foi'estry. 



White Birch Wood. — Quite a large business is being done in the exporta- 

 tion of white birch wood from the New Hampshire forests to be made into 

 thread spools. It is estimated that over a million feet were imported for this 

 purpose last year to England, and the demand is increasing. 



A Large Boiler. — A boiler, eighty feet long by six feet in diameter, and 

 weighing seventy tons, is being constructed at Cleaveland, Ohio, for the 

 U.S. Navy Yard at Charlestown, Mass. It is to be used for a new process 

 of preserving the timber to be used in the construction of wharves and docks 

 against the action of worms. 



EoYAL Trees.— The planting of memorial trees has long been a fa>'ourite 

 practice with the members of the Koyal Family, and on the occasion of her 

 Majesty's visit to the Premier, Lord Beaconsfield, at Hughenden, trees to 

 commemorate this special mark of the Sovereign's favour were planted on the 

 lawn by the Queen and the Princess Beatrice. The trees selected for the 

 purpose were Picea r.obilis and P. Nordmanniana. 



A " Big" Saw-mill. — They have a saw-mill at Port Madison, Puget Sound, 

 that is some at sawing long timber, ninety-foot sticks being quite common. 

 Logs have been sawed that weighed twenty-five tons, and from which were 

 made 6,000 feet of lumber. One stick was turned out that was 160 feet long, 

 squaring 4 feet at one end, and 18 inches at the other ; also a plank 60 feet 

 long, 5 feet wide, and 6 inches thick. — Lumberman. 



Teak Plantations in Madras. —The teak plantations at Nelamber, in the 

 Madras Presidency, cover an area of 3,000 acres, the oldest portion of which 

 has been planted 30 years. The total expenditure during that time, including 

 purchase, and the lease of another 19,000 acres, has been £30,000, and the 

 receipts for thinnings, &c., amount to £1,000. These plantations are now valued 

 at £150,000, and Colonel Pearson, late Inspector- General of Forests, estimates 

 their value, when mature, at the large sum of two millions sterling. 



Effect of Smoke on Trees. — Mr. Alcock, who for many years past has 

 been making experiments with trees planted in the vicinity of his cotton mill 

 near Manchester, finds that the Oriental plane, which does better than any 

 other tree in London smoke, will not grow at all in that of Lancashire ; on the 

 other hand, he has been very successful with the beech, sycamore, birch, 

 wych elm, and Turkey oak, but the lime tree does best of all. — Land and 

 Water. 



Insects devouring Teak Leaves. — It is stated that the officers of the Forest 

 Department of British Burmah are much exercised by the depredations of the 

 larvae of a moth which has recently appeared in vast numbers at Kyet-pyagon. 

 The caterpillars when first observed were supposed to be a species of Geo- 

 metra, but have since been identified as the larva species of Tortrix. They 

 devour the leaves of the young teak trees with great voracity, and threaten 

 eventual destruction to the extensive teak plantations, which the Government 

 has been at such great expense and trouble to create and preserve. 



Forests in Queensland. — Mr. Landsborough, the well-known Australian 

 explorer, recently read a paper at Oxley, Queensland, in which he adduces a 

 variety of interesting facts to prove that dense forests are on the increase 

 in Australia, that the climate is becoming moister, and therefore improving, 

 that the country is gradually ceasing to be favourable to sheep-rearing, and 

 becoming agricultural, and seems to hint that in course of time the great 



