THE ANNUAL EXCURSION. 515 



ever been their good fortune to hear. He trusted they would 

 have a good discussion on the points raised by the Doctor. 



Mr Pitcaithley, forester, Scone, said there was no doubt 

 about the fact that the superiority of the home-grown hardwood 

 was due to the open way in which it was grown. He had not 

 much faith in growing larch. There were isolated cases, in 

 Alpine situations, where the larch did well; but in nine cases 

 out of ten the disease was so prevalent that it was unprofitable 

 to plant larch. He did not think Scots fir really required any 

 thinning in the true sense of that term. Of course you had to 

 cut down all the dead or dying trees, and suppressed trees which 

 had been overshadowed by other trees, but that was not thinning 

 in its true sense. A great many plantations of Scots fir were 

 very much over-thinned. That had been brought about by 

 different causes. He himself had sold wood, by the shipload, 

 cut out of the plantations that were too thin before that wood 

 was cut, but the cutting was due to the fact that good prices 

 were being got for prop-wood. 



Mr Edward Tennant of The Glen, said he had recently been 

 to Germany to see all that was to be learned in practical 

 management of the forests there, and he would briefly give 

 them the results of his observations. The finest wood he saw 

 in Germany was in the neighbourhood of Eberswalde, which 

 the Excursion party of the Society had visited in 1895. This 

 wood extended to three thousand acres, and was composed entirely 

 of Scots fir and beech. The Scots fir in that wood was one hun- 

 dred and twenty years old, and was from 70 to 90 feet high. It 

 had been under-planted with beech when the Scots fir was sixty 

 years of age. These Scots firs were perfectly straight, and 

 showed clean, well-formed boles. They were ready for the 

 market, and were just on the point of being cut down — the 

 period of one hundred and twenty years being the maximum 

 of the rotation which the Germans work upon. They left about 

 four hundred trees per acre to come to maturity. The result 

 was that these trees thus selected to remain for matured growth 

 were perfect specimens of trees. In Germany they had some 

 oak plantations, but they did not strike him as being very 

 good. The best plantations were chiefly of beech and Scots pine. 

 The Harz Mountains were completely covered with spruce, and 

 there the same system was followed. The trees he saw there 

 were eighty years of age and 80 feet high. In Germany, 



VOL. XVI. PART III. 2 M 



