28 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ABBORICULTTJKAL SOCIETY. 



A. Area included in the Working Plan. 



1. THE OLDER WOODS. 



The older woods are stocked as follows : — 

 (a) Conifers. 



Scots fir, in about three-fifths of which larch are 

 scattered, ...... 



Scots fir and larch in more equal proportions, 



Scots fir and larch, with some hardwoods, or with 

 some spruce and hardwoods, 



Scots fir with a few hardwoods, 



Larch with spruce, ..... 

 Larch with hardwoods, .... 



Pure larch, .... 

 Miscellaneous crops of poor quality, 



Total, 



Acres. 



45 



Acres. 

 657 



70 

 4 

 — 119 



6 



68 

 18 



The age of these woods ranges from 47 to 122 years, the average 

 age being 84 years ; and the result of a careful estimate, made l in 

 respect of each wood, is that the average crop per acre, taken over 

 the whole ground now stocked, does not exceed 117 trees of from 

 12 to 13 cubic feet each, or say 1500 (quarter-girth) cubic feet of 

 timber, down to a diameter of 6 inches in the case of larch and of 

 7 inches in the case of Scots fir. This does not represent one-third 

 of the amount that fully stocked woods, in this locality, ought to 

 carry at 84 years of age. 



The presence in parts of the estate of fine specimens of all 

 the principal species serves to indicate the class of timber that the 

 ground is capable of producing, though the trees now standing on 

 a considerable portion of the area are, generally speaking, shorter 

 and of a rougher quality than might have been grown in denser 

 woods. But to the gales, which have cleared the crop from 

 parts of the ground now bai'e of trees, may in great measure be 

 ascribed the thinly stocked condition of many of the standing 

 woods ; while the growth of the Scots fir has been checked by 

 squirrels, which have irretrievably ruined a number of extensive 

 areas in which that tree forms the main element of the crop. At 

 the same time there is reason to believe that in some places, at 



1 By Mr J. D. B. Whyte, assistant-factor, and Mr William Mackenzie, 

 forester. 



