THE PLANTATIONS ON THE ESTATE OF SORN. oo 
per acre, To realise a moderate price, these trees should all be 
cleared off within the next three or four years, before the timber 
begins to deteriorate. 
The wood growing at the highest altitudes—say about 800 feet 
above sea-level—has during recent years brought £50 an acre 
thirty-five years after being planted, while the adjoining farm-land 
ouly brings 10s. per acre per annum; showing a yearly balance 
of 18s. 6d. per acre in favour of wood cultivation. At a lower 
altitude, woods forty-five years old were sold at £75 an acre, and 
the rent of the adjacent arable land was 15s. per acre, of which 
at least 2s. 6d. ought to be credited to the plantations for the 
shelter they afford. After all allowances are made for interest 
on the original outlay, these facts clearly prove that well-managed 
plantations pay the owner a handsome return within the reason- 
able period of a moderate lifetime, especially when they are laid 
out with skill on land of the nature of these uplands. 
The woods which were replanted from fifteen to twenty years 
ago suffered considerably from the storms of last winter, but 
the blanks then made might be quickly and satisfactorily filled 
by planting poplars. In these woods the larch has completely 
failed, and has caused a thinness of the crop, but the Scots fir 
and spruce are thriving. The woods from ten to fifteen years 
old are now in a healthy condition, although they suffered much 
from rabbits when planted; there being as many as 100,000 
young trees eaten in a year by these voracious vermin, The 
plantations have not been so much overrun with rabbits since 
the practice of letting them at so much per head was discon- 
tinued, which was simply putting a premium upon keeping up a 
large stock of the vermin, The remainder of the renewed planta- 
tions, from three to ten years of age, are very healthy, and 
promise in time to make a fine second crop. 
The present proprietor does not intend to plant until he 
ean do so with plants of his own raising; and with that object 
in view, he has recently laid out and partly stocked a home 
nursery. The site of the nursery in the Saugh Park was 
ploughed in the autumn of 1882, one foot deep, with four horses, 
turning up some of the subsoil. A crop of potatoes was planted 
in this in the spring of 1883, but the land was so infested with 
wire-worm that the crop produced little more than the seed. 
This year the beds for the forest tree-seeds were prepared without 
any manure, so that the soil is in rather a poor condition for the 
VOL. XI., PART I. € 
