172 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



management is absent. Working plans are unknown, or at least 

 are in the hands of but few. Mr Munro Ferguson's woods of 

 Raith and Novar have for some years been placed under a scheme 

 of management. But such regulated work is quite the exception. 

 In this connection I may make mention of a certain estate with 

 over 100,000 acres of woodland, where timber to the value of 

 .£1000 is sold annually. The timber represented by this sum is 

 taken quite without regard to the interests of the general manage- 

 ment of the forest; apparently fellings are proceeded with simply 

 where timber of the type desired is most accessible. 



In countries where forest management is primitive, one usually 

 finds great stocks of old timber ; this is not so in Britain, chiefly 

 in cotisequence of the want of large State woods. A few estates 

 are exceptional in this respect, particularly that of the Duke of 

 Atholl, where there are splendid woods of old larch. 



One of Lord Lovat's Scots pine woods was interesting to me as 

 providing an example of " two-storied High forest," in which both 

 the older and younger trees were pines — certainly a rare and 

 curious condition. The really fine timber of the older portion is at 

 least one hundred and fifty years old. It was heavily cut into 

 about fifty years ago, and through natural reproduction a second 

 growth has sprung up which now stands between and among the 

 former crop. About forty very large pines, having an average 

 content of fully 50 cubic feet, are found per acre, and between 

 them the slim poles of the younger pines. The question now is as 

 to the future of the wood ; it is more than time that the old pines 

 were felled — some of them are already failing — but one cannot 

 utilise them without sacrificing the younger generation. To fell 

 and remove the mature trees would now quite break up the 

 plantation. Altogether the wood presents an absurd picture, and 

 one that it would be difiicult to equal. In the north of Scotland 

 many middle-aged and younger woods are in a sad plight. They 

 are largely composed of Scots pine and larch, partly as woods of 

 one species, partly also in mixture together. Two heavy calamities 

 beset these woods — squirrels and larch disease. The squirrels 

 strip the bark from pine, larch, and spruce, but the pine is the 

 most severely damaged. Woods in the pole stage suffer most ; 

 bands of bark are peeled in rings from the trees, which con- 

 sequently either die, become suppressed, or are broken down by 

 snow. Side branches frequently take the place of a lost leader 

 only to meet with the same fate, so that bushy-headed, malformed 

 trees result. Only those who have seen the extent of the damage 



