12 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It is believed that there are at least four different trees 

 which can be grown in Britain that will give a crop of pit- 

 wood in fifteen to eighteen years. 



1. The Black Italian Poplar.— 'Y\\\s demands a better soil 

 than the coniferous trees, which are of rapid growth, and its 

 employment for this purpose must depend on the annual value 

 of the ground it is proposed to plant. 



2. The Douglas Fir is most suitable for sandy soils and 

 steep banks of deep sand, the grazing value of which is very 

 small. 



3. The Menzies Spruce while doing best on a fairly good 

 soil can be grown with success on a very poor subject. 



4. The Japa?iese Larch. — The writer has experimented a 

 good deal with this tree, and believes that it is the most 

 suitable of all for rapid rotation. It is quite certain that it 

 grows well on slopes of any kind, and so far as his experience 

 goes, a northerly aspect gives the best results. In a plantation 

 with such an exposure, formed in 1905, a few trees were girthed 

 in the summer of 19 16. At 5^ feet from the ground their 

 circumference varied from 14^ inches to 24 inches. These 

 trees stand in rows 6 feet apart, 3?, feet from one another in 

 the rows. They have completely killed all undergrowth, and 

 their annual leaf-fall appears to be adding considerably to the 

 humus. 



This plantation, which is small and which was only made for 

 experiment, could be clean cut for props in fifteen years from 

 date of planting, and give a very good return in interest on 

 original outlay, and a much higher rent for the ground for that 

 period, than the grazing value of the area planted, which was 

 covered by bracken and was not worth more than is. 6d. an 

 acre. To any who contemplate making plantations for pit- 

 prop purposes, it may be said with confidence that all hill- 

 sides that grow bracken will grow Japanese larch. 



It is to be hoped that this question of pit-wood supply will 

 not be overlooked when the woodlands that are now being cut 

 down in Scotland come to be re-planted, for it seems certain 

 that while a large area will need to be re-planted with Scots 

 fir and larch for the production of mature crop, there will be 

 many "odd corners" where a "catch-crop" of the nature 

 suggested above can be taken over and over again, to the 

 advantage of the whole community. It rests with the producers 



