SITKA SPRUCE TREE AT FONTHILL ABBEY. 65 



seed must presumably have been planted about 1864. Most 

 of the importations were planted in specially selected places 

 as specimen trees, but it is known that extensive planting was 

 in progress at that time, and some of the Sitka seedlings must 

 have been, by accident or design, planted out along with other 

 kinds of young trees.' 



" The age of the sample tree by count of annual rings was 

 56 years, and by record 60 years. 



"The sample tree, 108 ft. 10 ins. in height, 24^ ins. quarter- 

 girth at breast-height, was felled on 13th December 1920, and 

 on the day following was cross-cut into 20 feet lengths for 

 transport to London. Disks, 3 inches thick, were cut off at 40, 

 60, and 80 feet up the trunk for immediate examination in 

 the laboratory. The logs in the round were sent to Messrs 

 W. W. Howard's timber mill at Canning town, arriving on 

 24th January 192 1, and on 3rd February were converted into 

 3-inch planks. A few of these were set aside to season 

 naturally, and to provide samples for mechanical tests, while 

 the remainder were loaded into the kilns for artificial seasoning, 

 which was started on 15th February. 



"The sample tree was open-grown, and heavily branched 

 above 40 feet, but was markedly straight and cylindrical. 

 Only the basal 20 feet appeared clean on the outside. On 

 opening up the log at the mill, the centre was found to be very 

 knotty and the timber contained many small dead knots. As 

 is usual with this species, resin galls were observed, but these 

 were few and all of small size. The wood was very wet 

 and resinous, with wide annual rings, and the condition of 

 the butt was sound. 



"The top leading shoots measured 19 inches in length. 



Measuremen ts . 

 Quarter-girth, O.B., breast-height, to nearest |-inch 24^1 ins. 

 Total height . . . . 108 ft. 10 ins. 



Timber height (3-inch diameter) . . 102 ft. 11 ins. 



Quarter-girth, O.B., mid-timber height 

 Length of clean bole 

 Cubic contents, O.B., to timber height 

 Merchantable timber 

 Converted, 3-inch planks, cut to size 



17 ms. 



20 ft. 



206.8.7 cub. ft. 



168, 1 1.8 cub. ft. 



129.9.0 cub. ft. 



(approximate) 



VOL. XXXV. PART I. E 



