ON THE FELLING OF TIMBER TREES. 17. r ) 



XVII. The different Ages at whicJi various Timber Trees may 

 hr most profitably felled in different soils and situations. By 

 Lewis Bayne, Forester, Kinmel Park, North Wales. 



Timber trees are planted with the view of profits being derived, 

 either directly from the sale of the timber, or indirectly by giving 

 shelter to stock and crops, and increasing the value of an estate by 

 adding to its amenity. But in this short paper I shall confine my 

 remarks to trees yielding profit from the sale of their timber, as 

 trees grown for shelter or ornament, or partly for both, are generally 

 allowed to grow beyond maturity before being filled. 



At the outset it may be observed, that much depends on manage- 

 ment whether the planting of trees will turn out a profitable or a 

 losing investment; and whatever may be the kind of trees, or the soil 

 in wbich they grow, their general management in judicious pruning 

 and thinning on the one band, or total or partial neglect on the other, 

 will have much to do with the age at which they can be most 

 profitably cut down. "When trees neglected in their youth are 

 drawn up, and branchless except within a few feet of the top, in 

 consequence of over-crowding and want of judicious thinning, they 

 become prematurely ripe before reaching half the normal age and 

 size. In such cases, the most profitable system would be to fell the 

 whole at once and replant the land, as after trees pass a certain 

 stage thinning is of little avail, and a loss and waste of time results 

 from any attempt to improve them by changing the management. 

 But even with careful treatment and thinning from the first, the 

 results are different as regards the age at which trees should be 

 felled, the quantity and quality of the timber, and the revenue to 

 be derived by the proprietor therefrom. 



Thus, it occasionally happens that trees in the same plantation, 

 and in the same soil, do not arrive at maturity simultaneously — 

 one tree becoming mature, it may be, when eighty years planted, 

 while another close by may not reach the same stage before one 

 hundred years ; but such is the exception and not the rule, as in 

 well managed plantations trees in the same kind of soil generally 

 attain maturity about the same time, although they may vary much 

 in size. 



It is stated by some that Scots fir, larch, and spruce can be 

 most profitably cut at from twenty to thirty years of age, when grow- 

 ing in a locality where they can be disposed of for mining purposes ; 



