•_'4fi TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARRORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and the thirty-eighth years, in order to promote the further 

 development in diameter of the final crop. This crop, together 

 with the produce of the sixth thinning, if made, is expected to 

 realise from £55 to £65, or say £60 an acre net. After it has 

 been removed, the ground will be re-sown with Scots pine. 



The financial returns will probably work out somewhat as 

 follows, viz. : — 



This represents a net sale-price equivalent to £ 1 1 7s. 6d. per acre 

 per annum. 



The produce of the Mirwart Woods is sold either by public 

 auction, by private contract, or by tender, the last being the 

 more usual practice. The crops are all sold standing, the pur- 

 chaser felling and converting the trees, and removing the timber. 

 Scots pine poles, from twenty to thirty years old, sold as pit-wood, 

 realise about 3^-d. per (^-girth) cubic foot net; at thirty-five 

 to forty years old the net price rises from 4d. to 4|d. ; at fifty 

 years old to 5d.; and so on. Old Scots pine fetches a net price 

 of 7d. or 8d.; beech realises from 7d. to 10d.; oak, on an average, 

 Is. 3d. per (] -girth) cubic foot net. 



If, at about the thirty-fifth year, it should be decided to let 

 the wood stand to produce timber of larger size, instead of cutting 

 at the age of forty years for pit-wood, a thinning will then be 

 made, sufficient to permit the introduction of an under-crop of 

 beech ; and further thinnings will subsequently be made, from 

 time to time, to enable the beech to develop. The produce of these 

 thinnings will be sold as pit- wood, and the best of the Scots pine 

 trees will be left as standards until they attain their most profit- 

 able dimensions. The final crop will, in the end, probably consist 

 of pure beech. 



Had the crop on Sapins de Biolin been composed of spruce 

 instead of Scots pine, the rotation of forty years for pit- wood 



