PLAN FOR THE PIT-WOOD WORKING CIRCLE, RAITH ESTATE. 229 
crop on 71 acres consists of hardwoods as the main crop ; and 
47 acres are not yet stocked, but are to be planted during the 
coming season. The average ages of the crops forming these 
woods range from one year up to about eighty-five years. 
Speaking generally, the younger woods, up to the age of 
sixteen years, which cover an area of 573} acres, are fairly well 
stocked, and in good condition; but the same cannot be said 
of the older woods (2354 acres), which bear very thin and 
irregularly distributed crops of inferior quality. In consequence, 
without doubt, of too early isolation, the trees composing these 
thin crops are deficient in height, and taper rapidly from the 
butt; while, owing to the unrestricted development of side- 
branches, their timber is knotty; and, as they were given 
excessive growing-space in their youth, they then formed un- 
duly wide annual rings, composed mainly of soft tissue. To 
frame a reliable estimate of the growing stock in these irregular 
woods, it would have been necessary to undertake an enumera- 
tion survey over their entire area, but circumstances did not 
appear to warrant this. Such a survey was, however, made 
of three plots, which were selected as being the best of their 
kind, and the following was the result :— 
1. One acre of mixed spruce (?) and Scots fir (4) in Bankhead, 
average age fifty years, contained 359 trees, yielding, by quarter- 
girth measurement, 2455 cubic feet. 
2. A similarly constituted crop of half an acre in Bairns- 
bridge, average age fifty-eight years, contained at the rate of 382 
trees, measuring 3114 cubic feet to the acre. 
3. An acre of mixed Scots fir (#) and spruce (4) in Bairns- 
bridge, average age fifty-eight years, carried 387 trees, measuring 
2844 cubic feet. 
The above figures may be said to represent something like 
one-half of a full stock ; and it is probable that the older woods, 
taken together, do not, on an average, contain more than from 
one quarter to one-third of the timber that might be growing 
on them. From the above facts, it is evident that these woods 
are not now yielding to their owner anything like the annual 
increment, or annual growth of new wood, which he might 
reasonably expect to receive from the soil on which they stand ; 
and also that the quality of the wood produced is inferior, In 
consequence of these drawbacks, which, though now irremediable, 
are due to avoidable causes, the woods do not occupy the ground 
