NOTES ON HOME TIMBER-TRADE IN EAST OF SCOTLAND. 69 
have his wants supplied from Sweden and Russia, whence any 
quantity of clean round poles suitable for his purposes can be 
obtained at a price which is less than he has to pay for home- 
grown material. 
Of coniferous timbers, larch is by far the most important in 
the home timber-trade. It is used for a great variety of purposes, 
and there is really no other timber which can be substituted for it 
for many of these uses. Every year it seems to be getting more 
and more difficult to procure supplies of this timber, and prices 
are always good. For Scots pine of suitable size for railway 
sleepers there is always a good steady demand; but for smaller 
sizes of Scots pine, the principal outlet for which is for mining 
purposes, the prices have been low for the past two years, though 
there are at present signs of improvement in this direction. 
Spruce is chiefly used for mining purposes, but clean-grown stuff 
is also used in the manufacture of packing-boxes, though the 
foreign article competes keenly with it in its use for this purpose. 
Silver fir in this part of the country occurs in such small quantity 
that it may be left out of account, and such as does occur is 
coarse and only fitted for such purposes as rough spruce is put to. 
Though the home timber-trade has been seriously depressed 
for some time, there are not wanting at present some signs of 
returning prosperity. At the same time it behoves us to look 
ahead and if possible discover new outlets for our produce, and 
to stem, as far as we can, the tide of foreign competition, 
especially in hardwood timbers. No foreign hardwood timber 
of the same kind can excel our best home-grown samples in 
strength and durability; but unless long, straight, clean-grown 
boles from which scantlings of sufficient length and weight 
to meet the demand which has recently sprung up for them 
can be procured, foreign competition will continue to make 
headway. Short-boled, coarse, heavy-topped trees are not what 
we want nowadays. Such trees cost much more to fell than 
those of clean growth, and the clearing-up of the brash is a 
serious item; moreover, the price which can be given for 
the timber is, owing to its being unsaleable for any but the 
coarser purposes, a low one. What is wanted is long, clean- 
grown timber of good quality. Such timber will pay the grower, 
timber merchant and consumer alike much better than coarse 
stuff, so much of which is often put on the market in large 
quantities, causing serious depreciation in prices. 
