I^O TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICUI.TURAL SOCIETY. 



technical enough to be able to say, but that it was not always 

 SO I have good proof. The old Mar wood, as it was called, 

 grown in Ballochbuie or at Mar Lodge or in Rothiemurchus, 

 was equal in mildness, and even in freedom from sapwood, 

 to the best fir that comes into this country from abroad. 



In hardwoods, I should recommend but three varieties : the 

 oak, the ash, and the elm. All these three, as grown in this 

 country, especially in England and central and southern 

 Scotland, are far superior in quality to the same timber grown 

 in any other part of the world ; all that they have needed to 

 attain perfection has been that they should have been grown 

 eti masse and not, as they as a rule are, in park or hedgerow. 

 The plane was wont to be a most valuable tree, but many 

 substitutes have been found for both it and the beech, although 

 they are perhaps the most beautiful trees in the landscape. 

 Beech is very plentiful in Virginia and adjacent states. It is 

 very similar to our own wood, perhaps a little softer and 

 redder in colour. Whilst on a prospecting visit there many 

 years ago, I was offered whole tracts of very decent trees at 

 one-eighth of a penny per cubic foot on the stump, as it is 

 called. 



The counsel to grow common varieties of firs and to look for 

 what may be regarded as mean markets may seem unpatriotic, 

 but there the most profitable markets will be found. There 

 was a rude truth in the advice I once heard a veteran dealer 

 in mahogany give to a beginner, " If you want to make 

 money buy trash."' What was meant was that you made 

 about the same profit off the foot of a low-priced log as you 

 did off a high-priced one, and only half, or perhaps less than 

 half, the money was needed for the purchase. The reasons 

 I put forward for this line of policy are these. You will 

 always have an abundant demand ; you will have easily handled 

 dimensions ; the foreigner will be less able to compete with 

 you in cheap wood than in dear, as his freight and handling 

 charges will be as high per cubic foot in the one case as in 

 the other. I know strong arguments will be used to you 

 that you should try Douglas fir, let us say, instead of the 

 Scots pine. All honour to the Durris lairds for their heroic 

 experiments, but as far as they have gone they have failed 

 to establish that, whate\'er the tree may be in its native 

 haunts in British Columbia, it has in tliis country proved a 



