VALUE AS A CROP. 1 69 



wliicli 2;ave the survivino- ones double advantaire. Some 

 of the trees so favoured now contain 75 cubic feet 

 of timber and upwards, and are from 80 to 90 feet in 

 height, while the average trees, though quite as tall, 

 contain only about 25 cubic feet. 



Tills plantation is now partly cut down, hence it 

 cannot be properly valued ; but twenty years ago it 

 contained an average of about 200 trees per acre, at 

 25 cubic feet each = 5000, which at is. per foot 

 amounts to ;^2 50 per acre, being the maximum value 

 it was capable of attaining. The plantation as it now 

 stands is worth about half the latter sum. 



Loch Ordie and Loch Hoshnie plantations or forests 

 may be regarded as one, or at least described here as 

 such, being all within one boundary, and in most 

 other respects much the same. The combined con- 

 tents of the two plantations amount to 5190 Scotch, 

 or 65 4 5 J- imperial acres — the largest larch plantation, 

 probably, in Britain. The planting was completed in 

 eleven years, having been commenced in 1 8 1 5 and 

 finished in 1826, and is perhaps the greatest undertak- 

 ing in the way of planting ever executed by one person. 

 The total number of larches planted upon the estate 

 between 1738 and 1826 amounted to 14,096,719 

 plants, which, at the rate of 2000 plants per acre (some 

 of the ground only 1200 per acre), covered an area of 

 10,324 imperial acres. 



The instructions were to plant larch (alone) at dis- 

 tances apart of six feet ; but these instructions seem not 

 to have been attended to, as at the present day some 



