VALUE AS A CEOP. I7I 



strictly observed on some of the hillsides around Loch 

 Ordie than in most parts of the forest. In some in- 

 stances the trees are yet standing at the same distances 

 as when planted, showing that they had not at any 

 time been thinned. On such parts the value of the 

 trees is three-fourths less than where they had been 

 thinned when about or before twenty years old. Not 

 only is the irrcscnt difference in value in favour of 

 timeous thinning, but the older the trees grow the 

 difference becomes still greater. At fifty-two years old 

 the thinned part is worth 8 s. per tree on an average, 

 while the unthinned part is worth only 2s. per tree. 

 Allowing the plantation to stand till eighty years old, 

 the difference in value, as indicated by the present 

 proportional growth, will then be — the thinned trees 

 35 s. each, and those unthinned 5 s. each. In other 

 words, the unthinned trees at fifty-two years old are 

 worth only one-fourth that of the thinned ones, while 

 their prospective value at eighty years old will be 

 only one-seventh. 



Though the individual trees differ in value seven- 

 fold, the value per acre does not so differ. The un- 

 thinned parts, six feet distant, contain 1200 trees per 

 acre, at 5s. per tree = ;^300; and the parts thinned 

 out to double that distance contain only 302 trees 

 per acre, at 30s. each =: £a^'J2, — thus making the true 

 value of an acre thinned out to half the number 

 planted at six feet, between one-fourth and one-fifth 

 more value than the part left standing at the distance 

 planted. At the end of eighty years there is a balance 



