82 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



that not only can a crop of timber be made to pay, but that, 

 given the right tree on the right ground, a very good return can 

 be obtained : and I think in this Res a great deal of either the 

 success or the failure of timber growing. For, supposing this 

 piece of ground to begin with had been planted either with Scots 

 fir or spruce, the financial result would have been an entire 

 failure. On the other hand, take larch planted on a poor thin 

 moor soil, very often in mixture with Scots fir. What is the 

 result ? The larch seems to take hold, and even grow well for 

 a time, so long as its roots are in the top soil, and in many cases 

 it outgrows and damages the Scots fir ; but then it begins to look 

 sickly and gradually goes back, its roots having got down into 

 the cold soil, with the result that, in about twenty years or so, 

 we have neither a crop of the one nor of the other, but are 

 left with a poor mixture of both. 



I am quite convinced that had this plantation been carefully 

 gone over at about ten years of age, instead of three or four 

 years later, and had this been followed up every second or third 

 year by taking out all suppressed trees and any others likely to 

 do damage, the good results now obtained would certainly have 

 been better. Though there would have been fewer stems per 

 acre, the volume of timber would have been greater, and I think 

 we should have been assured of a healthy, vigorous crop, likely 

 to carry itself to a marketable age and to yield a very good 

 return. 



From this comparatively small piece of ground a good many 

 deductions can be made, some of which are the following : — 



1. The great mistake of planting Scots fir along with larch; 

 and, I would add, of planting larch in even-aged mixture at all. 



2. Larch as a pure crop should be treated with more care, 

 and in an entirely different manner from i)ure Scots fir, spruce, 

 or Douglas fir. 



3. Underplanting with Douglas fir could be well taken advan- 

 tage of here, as in many other places, were it not for ground game. 



4. Lastly, I think that even ground at 30s. per acre, planted 

 with the right tree, can and will, after 21 years, yield a good 

 return. Although no one would advocate the planting of 

 ground at anything even approaching this high rent, still I am 

 sure that plantable ground of a low rent, carefully stocked, other 

 conditions being equal, can not only be made to pay but will 

 yield a good return. A. Finlayson. 



