INAUGURATION OF NEW CHAIR OF FORESTRY AT CIRENCESTER. 193 



I shall call loam, which practically suits any of our forest trees ; 

 in the same degree as you proceed to heavier soils, the conifers retire, 

 and vice versa. Again, some species, to do really well, require a 

 fertile soil, like sycamore, ash, oak, and elm ; others are somewhat 

 less exacting, like chestnut, beech, and silver fir ; next come Norway 

 maple, lime, alder, larch, and spruce ; less exacting again, willows, 

 poplars, birch, Weymouth pine, Scotch and Austrian pine. There 

 are, of course, many other points to be considered, and the forester 

 must make his choice accordingly. 



Average Annual Production. 



We have as yet in this country very few data which throw 

 light on the possible average production of the various species. 

 The matter is complicated by the fact that certain species grow 

 fast from the very start, while others grow slow at first, but make 

 up for it by growing faster later on. Both in Germany and in 

 France the collection of statistics on the question under con- 

 sideration has, during the last twenty or thirty years, been most 

 actively prosecuted, so that a great mass of information is now 

 available, although it is not yet complete. We have now tables 

 giving detailed information of the progress of woods of beech, 

 Scotch pine, spruce, and silver fir; provisional tables for oak, 

 larch, and some other trees. The best available data show that 

 on a locality of average yield-capacity in the use of each species, 

 and under proper sylvicultural treatment, larch and ash give the 

 greatest average production under a rotation of about 70 years; 

 Scotch pine under a rotation of about 80 yeai-s ; spruce, 90 years; 

 beech and silver fir, 120 years; and oak, 130 years. On fertile 

 soil the culmination occurs earlier, and on inferior soils later. 

 If worked under that rotation, we can count on an average pro- 

 duction in the way of timber as follows : Ash, about 40 cubic feet 

 per annum; oak, 46 cubic feet; beech, 57 ; Scotch pine, 70; larch, 

 73; spruce, 84; and silver fir, about 111 cubic feet per annum. 

 Placing the value per cubic foot for oak and ash all round at 

 Is. 5d., beech lid., larch lid., Scotch pine and silver fir 8d., 

 and spruce 7d., larch gives the highest annual money production 

 and spruce the lowest. But it must be remembered that the 

 mean annual production culminates at difierent periods, that 

 of oak being as much as 130 years, whilst that of spruce is 

 90 years. 



