GROWING TIMBER FOR PROFIT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 31 
work must always continue, and there is every probability that 
the price of this class of wood will continue to rise steadily, 
as it has been doing in the last ten years, owing to the gradual 
shortage of supply and the increased demand in other countries 
as well as our own. As regards our older conifers, Norway 
spruce, silver fir, and Scots pine, I must admit that I am 
not a great believer in the common or Norway spruce (Picea 
excelsa). It does not yield timber of first-rate quality, and 
there is no reason why we should blindly stick to it if we can 
find other trees which promise better results. Silver fir I believe 
to be a more profitable tree than Norway spruce; but it will 
not succeed on many kinds of soil, and its timber is, at the 
best, not of sufficiently good quality to warrant its general 
use. With regard to Scots pine, I do not wish to depreciate 
the good qualities of this tree, which will probably always 
continue to be the backbone of all planting operations on land 
of poor quality. Its good qualities are too well known to 
require enumeration, but, at the same time, it has a great 
proportion of sap-wood, worthless for all except the cheapest 
purposes, which it carries up to at any rate eighty years of 
age.! Another drawback, and a very serious one, is that after 
about fifty years pure Scots pine opens out overhead, and 
thereafter fails to protect the soil. That is to say, it is not, 
during the latter part of its life-period, a good shade-bearer. 
Looking at the whole situation broadly, therefore, it seems 
to me that if we can procure a class of trees suitable to different 
elevations, soils, etc., and capable of being grown satisfactorily 
in mixed woods formed for purposes of experiment, then no 
one will deny that the introduction of such trees on an extensive 
scale into Great Britain and Ireland would hold out a fair 
promise for the profitable growing of timber in this country ; 
and the timber-producing districts of Western Washington and 
Oregon in the United States, and of British Columbia in 
Canada, seem those most likely to supply the class of trees 
we require. 
1 Creosoting, naphthalining, and saccharising have entirely altered this, 
because the soft sap-wood is that part which absorbs the antiseptic substances 
most readily and in largest quantity. —Hon. Ep. 
