CHAPTEE XII. 



TIME OF MATURITY. 



When the agriculturist sows or plants a crop of any 

 kind, lie calculates how long it will take to come to 

 maturity, makes his calculations, and lays his plans 

 accordingly. In like manner should the forester know 

 how long in planting any piece of ground it will re- 

 quire to bring the crop to maturity, or to its highest 

 state of perfection. 



Two kinds of soil will bring larch to maturity in 

 thirty years. They are of two wide and different 

 descriptions, and yet produce results the same in one 

 respect, though different in others. 



An open, porous, moist, white sandy loam, abound- 

 ing in about equal proportions of white sand and clay, 

 will bring a crop of larch to maturity within the above 

 period. 



On Buckhurst Park Estate, in Sussex, a larch 

 plantation was cut down in 1854, the trees of which 

 averaged about thirty cubic feet of timber, and though 

 the wood was soft when cut, yet, on being seasoned, it 

 acquired greater hardness, and as weather-boarding it 

 has stood up to this time (now twenty-six years), and 



