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REPORT ON THE EXCURSION TO GERMANY. 183 
The Scots firs grown upon the finer sandy land appeared to us 
to be of a very rough habit of growth, such as one sees upon land 
that is too rich for Scots fir at home; but upon the land composed 
of a grittier nature the firs assumed more of the habit one sees on 
the gravelly hill-sides in the north of Scotland. On the other 
hand, the young oaks had a very fine clean and healthy appearance 
upon the finer class of sandy land. 
Taken as a whole, the State plantations at Lintzel are thriving 
very well, and give promise of producing good timber ; and those 
in charge have no doubt about their being a success financially. 
But apart from any question of profit, the land, which before being 
planted supported but a scanty population, has now a colony of 
workers established upon it. The Government has also a small 
convict prison in the wood, and the prisoners are employed at what- 
ever work is on hand, the institution receiving half the price paid to 
free labour.. What a wide field is open to our Government for the 
use of convict labour and the unemployed, in clothing the hill-sides of 
Scotland and Ireland with timber! Will our nation’s representatives 
make an honest trial with even 10,000 acres? 
Tue State Forest oF LAvUENAU. 
A very large area of these woods is composed of beech, and are, 
as a rule, raised from natural seedlings, which readily spring up 
after the wood has been thinned so as to allow the sun’s rays to get 
to the ground. 
We do not think it is possible for us in this country to raise 
beech woods by natural seed in the same way as is done in 
Germany, because, in the first place, wood-pigeons and other birds 
-would pick up all our seed as soon as it fell on the ground; and in 
the next place, we have as a rule so much herbage in our woods 
that it would cost less to plant with good sized plants than to 
prepare the surface for the seed. On the other hand, when the 
Germans begin thinning for the purpose of allowing seedlings to 
spring up, their woods are so thick that there is no herbage on the 
ground, and it is, therefore, a simple matter to scarify the surface, 
so as to give a good seed-bed ; and there are very few wood-pigeons 
to eat the seeds. 
On first seeing a section of young beech wood at Lauenau, the 
writer thought that the whole thing was ruined for want of 
thinning. The plants were about 20 feet high, and as thick upon 
