182 Scotch P'orestry. 



Now it is undoubtedly the case that at the dawn of history, 

 Scotland was a very well-wooded country. Authorities differ in 

 their opinion as to how far there was a Highland Scots Fir forest 

 covering what is now all moorland and peat hagg, but certainly 

 there was at a very distant period (possibly prehistoric or even 

 glacial) a Scots Fir forest composed of trees 18 inches to two feet 

 in diameter over an enormous area. Dr Lewis found remains of 

 these trees practically wherever he searched for them at altitudes 

 of 800-1000 feet in the Merrick Kells district. In the Highlands 

 also he found remains of two Scotch Fir forests which had appar- 

 ■ ently developed at dififerent periods. 



Even if one grants that these forests were prehistoric and 

 that the climate has changed, the change has most certainly been 

 for the better from a forestry point of view. 



Besides this upland Coniferous forest, it seems that at the 

 dawn of history a forest of oak, birch, and hazel apparently 

 covered almost the whole of the lower grounds, upon which a few 

 clearings made by the scanty population can hardly have made 

 much impression. 



But the climate of Scotland to-day is really the decisive 

 factor, and is of more importance than its rainfall in the period 

 of Agricola, or at the close of the Glacial period. 



There is, so far as I can gather from rather insufficient data, 

 a very close resemblance between our climate and that of British 

 Columbia. 



In British Columbia the rainfall appears to be from 60-80 

 inches, rising in the hills to probably 100 inches. The Western 

 Highlands of Scotland have a similar rainfall, which appears to 

 ■be on the whole similarly distributed. We have not in the Scot- 

 tish uplands quite so heavy a rainfall as this, but both here and in 

 Renfrewshire there is ample moisture for forests. So far as I can 

 judge, I think it is safe to say that all those parts of Scotland 

 which one would wish to afforest enjoy what is essentially a true 

 forest climate. 



In British Columbia, on soil which is only a few inches deep, 

 often only porous gravel, trees 150 to 200 feet grow within a few 

 feet of one another. These Douglas Firs, Sitka Cypress, Menzies 

 Spruce, Thuja gigantea (T. plicata), and Tsuga Mertensiana have 

 been tried in Scotland and the results are decidedly encouraging. 

 So far as regards climate, Scotland has from a forestry point 

 of view nothing to complain of. 



