34 TKAXSACTIOXS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBOIUCL'LTURAL SOCIETY. 



per cubic foot, which rate includes all charges for felling, logging, 

 and transport by water, over a distance of 5G miles; and as the 

 proprietor of the mills i>ays 2d. per cubic foot for it, there is a 

 surplus of Id. for the maintenance of the forest, and as profit. 



Accompanied by M. Haluzy, the acting conservator, we left 

 J^Iarmaros-Sziget early the following morning, and drove up the 

 valley of the Tisza, stopping for a short time to look over the 

 Crown Prince's shooting-box at Lonka, which is near the bottom of 

 the valley, and surrounded on all sides by hills covered with forest, 

 chiefly of beech. Spruce was tried, but it was unable to withstand 

 the summer heat. After a brief halt, we continued our journey up 

 the valley, meeting a great many rafts on their way down to the 

 saw-mills. Here, in the lower part of the valley, the crop is 

 principally beech, mixed with some oak, spruce, and other trees. 

 Oak and spruce are the only kinds of wood that it at present pays 

 to export ; beech is girdled, and if it cannot be sold as fuel, it is 

 left to die in the forest ; and as the oak does not float alone, it is 

 either mixed with the fir logs to form the rafts, or laid on the top 

 of them, and thus conveyed down stream. Further on we reached 

 the spruce forests, which are here almost pure ; that is to say, 

 unmixed with other species. They suffer very much from storms, 

 which do an enormous amount of damage ; the roots of the tree 

 are very superficial, and it is consequently very liable to be thrown 

 down. Something like one-half of the forests in the conservatorship 

 are stocked with spruce, and it is said that in July 1885, during a 

 storm which lasted 36 hours, half a million of trees were overturned. 

 In the place where we were the storm had been severely felt, the 

 entire forest having been laid low over considerable areas, and the 

 barked stems lying in masses on the ground, like so many spilikins. 

 The course of the wind could easily be traced down the valley ; 

 here it had struck a spur on the right side of the stream, whence, 

 after knocking over every tree in its path, it was diverted to the 

 opposite side, and thence back again ; and it thus pursued its 

 downward zigzag course, completely destroying the forests alter- 

 nately on the right and on the left side of the valley. It is easy 

 to imagine that such occurrences interfere very seriously with the 

 provisions of the working plan, the regular fellings having to be 

 postponed in consequence of them. The dread of these storms 

 prevents the Hungarian foresters from regenerating their pure 

 spruce forests by the natural process ; for if the crop were removed 

 by successive instalments, and the wind were thus permitted to 



