24 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTUBAL SOCIETY. 



Such operations, however, require skill and care. The wood 

 must first have grown up as a dense thicket, and must continue so 

 in the earlier pole stage. Then, when the heavy thinning is made, 

 the tallest, soundest, and best shaped trees must be'" left standing, 

 and those that have the cleanest bole. Then, if the thinning has 

 been made at the right time, the beech will go ahead, and it may 

 be necessary to promote its development by a second thinning. 

 It is a good thing to stimulate the growth of the beech, so that it 

 may help to kill and clear away the lower branches of the oak or 

 Scots pine. 



The operation just described is equally applicable to forests of 

 larch. Large areas have been planted with larch near Dunkeld 

 and elsewhere in Scotland ; the larch disease, however, has done 

 much damage, and it seems to be the general opinion that, as a 

 rule, the tree will not attain any great age, so as to form large and 

 really valuable timber. Under these circumstances, and consider- 

 ing the fact that in its home the larch grows best when the ground 

 is covered by beech, or another shading kind, I think I am justi- 

 fied in suggesting that experiments be made of under-planting 

 larch woods in the advanced pole stage, when say about forty 

 years old, in some ai'eas with beech and in others with silver fir. 

 A heavy thinning, the most promising trees being left standing, 

 should, as a matter of course, precede the planting or sowing of 

 the underwood. 



These suggestions, I fear, may not commend themselves to the 

 practical sense of the Scottish forester, for as a matter of course 

 part of the ground will be taken up by beech, the timber of which 

 is not marketable, or by silver fir, which may or may not, when it 

 attains the stage of poles, be utilized for scaffolding. Neverthe- 

 less the experiment should be made, and to those members of the 

 Society who are in a position to make such an experiment, I would 

 recommend them to make it on areas of say 100 acres. You will 

 readily understand that on the area thus experimented upon, 

 there will be fewer stems of the larch per acre, for the beech and 

 silver fir must have room. But it is not at all impossible that 

 the better quality, the more rapid growth of the larch, and its 

 immunity from larch disease and other calamities, may repay the 

 trouble and expense which this experiment will entail. And with 

 that suggestion I beg to close my remarks on pure forests and 

 mixed woods. I thank you with all my heart for the attention 

 which you have bestowed upon this rather special subject. 



