104 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



one-third spruce and silver fir, and a little less than a quarter 

 beech. 



If we now consider specially the State forests we obtain the 

 following figures, given separately for Prussia and for the whole 

 empire : — 



Or, in round numbers, a total of 338 million cub. metres 

 (11,938,160,000 cub. feet) of timber available in the German 

 State forests, of which 183 is in wood of over 100 years, 85 in 

 wood of from 81 to 100 years, and 70 in wood of from 61 to 

 80 years. More than a third of this enormous amount of 

 material is Scots pine, which will furnish excellent timber for 

 rebuilding the houses destroyed by the vandal boche. A 

 quarter, in beech, will give good carpentry material. The 

 spruce and silver fir will yield 3 milliards of good planks, 

 which will come in very handy for our needs and to the relief 

 of our own conifer forests. The oak, too, will be very welcome 

 for our cabinet-makers, who are in danger of failing to obtain 

 this first-class material from our own woods, impoverished, 

 ruined and destroyed as they are by the war. 



We may ask what is the value in money of these 338 million 

 cub. metres of timber. Although this is a secondary matter, I 

 will attempt briefly to answer the question. 



In 1902 the sale price of a cubic metre of wood of all kinds, 

 felled and fashioned in the State forests, was — in Prussia, 15 frs. ; 

 in Bavaria, 19-10 frs.; in Baden, 1975 frs. 



The cost per cubic metre of fashioning and transport to the 

 roads was — in Bavaria, i'6o frs. in 1900, and i - 98 frs. in 1907. 

 We may thus reasonably estimate at 16 frs. the value of a cubic 

 metre of wood standing, and at 5400 million frs. (five milliard 

 four hundred million) the net value of the disposable timber in 

 the German State forests. The value is estimated on the 1902 

 price; it would certainly be three times as much now. 



If we add to what precedes the material from the communal 

 conifer forests of Baden and Wurtemberg we find it comes to 

 8 million cub. metres, which could furnish 250 million planks, 



