56 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBOR1CULTURAL SOCIETY. 



In spite of the increase in the number of reserved trees the 

 amount of fuel and of bark extracted remained pretty nearly 

 constant at 600 steres and 35,000 kilos, respectively. (A " stere " 

 is a cubic metre as a stack.) This bears out Gurnaud's 

 contention that the branches of the standards compensate for 

 the reduction in the growth of the coppice, while their trunks 

 are all so much to the good. The revenue used formerly to be 

 a.bout 460 frs. a hectare, but is now 680 frs., in consequence, 

 our author says, of the increased amount of timber, but no 

 doubt it is also due to the circumstances of to-day. 



The fact is that unless records are kept one does not at all 

 realise the extent to which a wood grows, more especially if 

 one lives beside that wood, so that when one is faced with 

 reliable figures one is quite surprised. An example of this 

 may be given. In April-May 1914 (that is practically before 

 the year's growth began) I enumerated 3 acres of woodland, 

 recording the stems by calliper classes of a foot of girth at 

 chest-height. It is a very thin wood. For a special purpose 

 I took a line 16J feet wide for 120 chains straight forward 

 through the wood, recording whatever fell within this line. 

 Each tree was marked with a spot of white paint, about 4j feet 

 from the ground, so that whenever measurements are taken 

 the operator may face the same way (he would always face 

 the spot) and take the measurements at the same place. 

 Having done this, I calculated the cubic feet of utilisable timber 

 from data which I have collected for a dozen years, and which 

 experience has shown to be reliable. It is true these data are 

 obtained from felled stems measured by quarter-girth and string 

 measurement, and are further vitiated by an absurd convention 

 which obtains here, according to which the stems are lengthed 

 to yards (fractions of a yard being omitted), and each yard is 



