222 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



or where required, three different directions. Heaps of pulled- 

 up roots and other debris form, especially after the second and 

 third cutting, and these must be spread out by hoe and pitchfork. 

 The cost of this operation was, in the most difficult localities, 

 about 27s. per hectare. The grubber worked well on areas thus 

 prepared, at a cost of 33s. per hectare, but nevertheless small 

 heaps of organic debris formed again in its wake. In order to 

 secure a most perfect preparation of the ground, it was found 

 necessary to pull these to pieces and to mix them with the soil, 

 at a cost of about 30s. per hectare. As a matter of fact the 

 whole cost of a most perfect preparation of the soil over a very 

 difficult area of io-8 hectare, in the forest division of Gross Bartel 

 in East Prussia, averaged only 85s. per hectare. Both plantings 

 and sowings, where the latter had been carefully trodden down, 

 were entirely successful. The preliminary cutting and the 

 working of the grubber destroy the whole system of the under- 

 growth and grasses so thoroughly that no sign of their reappear- 

 ance has been observed so far. This not only renders it cheap 

 to keep the cultivation clear, but secures the whole of the 

 moisture in the surface soil to the young pine. 



28. The Prices of Home Timber.^ 



In accordance with the remit made to them on this 

 subject by the General Committee on 15th January 1913, the 

 Timber Sub-Committee have held several meetings. They 

 have had before them a large amount of information regarding 

 the prices at which home timber is sold in different parts of 

 Scotland, both standing and in a manufactured state. They 

 have also ascertained the prices at which foreign sawn timber of 

 the usual commercial sizes is sold at the main ports of entry in 

 Scotland. They have had the assistance, in their researches, 

 of many prominent members of the timber trade to whom this 

 report was submitted in draft and to whom the Committee 



' A Report by the Timber Sub-Committee of the Landowners' Co-operative 

 Forestry Society, Ltd., on remit to them by the General Committee as to 

 general lines of policy to be pursued in view of the variation in prices between 

 home and foreign timber, with the object of raising the prices of home timber. 



