PLAN FOR THE PIT-WOOD WORKING CIRCLE, RAITH ESTATE, 245 
3000 cubic feet, £5 for the additional value of the larch, and 
£12 for thinnings, including fuel; providing for expenditure 
on planting and fencing at £5, and for tending, management, 
and payment of rates and taxes, etc. at 3s. per acre per annum 
over the entire area ; the younger woods and new plantations will 
yield a nett annual revenue of slightly over £2 an acre. If this 
sum be reduced by 25 per cent., as a further allowance for unfore- 
seen contingencies, we are left with an annual surplus of 30s. an 
acre, which, with compound interest on all items, represents an 
annual soil rental of 14s. 10d. over the whole area these woods 
occupy. The expected annual surplus is therefore more than 
three times that to be obtained from the older woods, and 
represents at least 74 times the average cash surplus derivable 
from the land if it had remained under cultivation and graz- 
ing. The normal annual felling-area of 20 acres should then, 
under the extremely favourable conditions prevailing at Raith, 
render a sustained yield of at least 60,000 (quarter-girth) cubic 
feet of pit-wood, having a nett annual value of not less than 
£1200. The returns during the second half of the first rotation, 
i.e., from the 21st to the 40th year, will be on an average higher 
than this, because, although some of the crops will not have 
reached the full age of 40 years, the average felling-area during 
that period will be 28} acres as compared with 201 acres. 
Winb-BreAks (SHELTER-BELTS). 
Wind-breaks, or shelter-belts, have been recommended for 
the more exposed sides of several of the woods. Where 
possible, such belts should be at least 40 yards wide, and they 
should be worked in two strips, one being from 30 to 40 years 
younger than the other, so that at least one-half of the belt may 
always be young enough to offer an effectual screen against the 
wind. The outer edge of each strip might be formed of hard- 
woods, such as oak, beech, plane (sycamore), and Norway maple, 
the branches of which might be shortened so as to reduce leverage, 
and thus enable the trees to offer a firm resistance to the wind. 
With these might be planted Corsican pine and mountain pine; 
and behind the latter a line of spruces, which should be allowed 
to branch low and develop their roots, and which might be 
headed off when they attain a height such as to endanger their 
stability. The first requirement from a wind-break is that it 
should stand up; and the individual trees composing it must be 
