Editors Box. 361 



AGE OF TREES. 



SiK,— Some of your correspondeuts write about trees 100 years old, aud 

 seem to think tliis no great age. After all, I don't see tliat this has 

 much to do with either the science or practice of forestry, or that it is 

 suggestive of anything in particular, if it may not be turned to account 

 as subject-matter for a Scotch sermon. 



The following questions may, I think, be considered with advantage in 

 the pages of your journal, viz., what are the kinds and varieties of 

 trees which our climate will produce in greatest perfection ? what are the 

 particular purposes for which the same are most suitable? and what maybe 

 the probable return per acre, at the least possible outlay in time and 

 labour? In short, what arc the inducements to plant in this country at the 

 present day? In any calculation on either of these questions it is needless, 

 I think, to take land rent into account, as I am fully persuaded that 1,000 

 or 2,000 acres of our exposed uplands, taken in block, judiciously divided, 

 and planted to the extent of one-fifth, or say one-tenth of the whole, 

 according to situation and other circumstances, would within a very few 

 years come to maintain the same amount of stock as before, if not in 

 number at least in value ; and there are other substantial advantages to 

 folloAV that would go far to recoup the morsel of rent which it is now 

 yielding, and with compound interest added. 



■ It would be interesting to your readers to know something of the extent 

 and value of the article " pitwood," which is annually imported into this 

 country from abroad. jMy own knowledge of this and some other similar 

 matters is limited, and I suspect that the same plea of ignorance must be put 

 forthoul)ehalf of many who are vastly more concerned than I am. This 

 much we know, that pitwood alone forms a very considerable item in the 

 traffic receipts of our railways, that it can be groAvn in this country to per- 

 fection, and to any extent required, and easily accessible to the] pit head 

 all over the country, on which and other advantages, public and private, I 

 must leave some others to enlighten us. Referring to the Board of Trade 

 returns of late, and comparing the enormous amount of our imports in 

 excess of the exports, any one will see that the question is of some import- 

 ance, and I hope it will be thoroughly ventilated in the pages of this 

 journal. Jno. Dykes. 



Wards, KilmuDwd-, X.B., '2,2nd August, 1S77. 



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