CHAPTER VII. 



QUALITY OF BRITISH-GROWN CONIFEROUS TIMBERS. 



With the object of testing the quality of the timber of the 

 various species of coniferous trees cultivated in this country, 

 I have lost no opportunity during the last twenty-two years 

 either of collecting specimens or conducting experiments. 

 This, I need hardly add, has been attended with considerable 

 difficulties, and it has not been easy to procure home-grown 

 specimens of a suitable age and size to render the experiments 

 thoroughly trustworthy. Fortunately for the carrying out of 

 such experiments, I have had the management of parks and 

 woodlands where numbers of the rarer conifers had to be re- 

 moved in the ordinary course of thinning, while the wind has, 

 on not a few occasions, acted as a kind friend in procuring 

 specimens that would not otherwise have been obtainable. 



As will be seen from the measurements given throughout 

 the following notes, probably the largest and oldest specimens 

 in this country of Pinus Laricio, P. Laricio austriaca, P. pon- 

 derosa, P. Pinaster, P. Strobiis, P. muricata, Cedrus Libani, 

 Cupressus inacrocarpa, C. Lawsoniana, C. torulosa, Cunning- 

 hamia sinensis, Araucaria ivibricata, Abies grandis, A. Nord- 

 manniana, Picea nigra, P. morinda, P. sitchensis, Sequoia 

 gigantea, Cryptomeria japonica, Thuya gigantea, ^n^ Junipenis 

 virginiana have been cut down, and portions of the converted 

 wood used in various ways by way of experiment in testing 

 their quality.^ 



Whilst carrying out these experiments, few things have 

 surprised me more than the way in which the timber of cer- 

 tain species of coniferous trees is affected by the particular 



1 Portions of this paper were communicated by me to the Gardener's Chronicle, 

 where they appeared in a series of articles during 1895. 



