BRITISH-GROWN TIMBERS 243 



Araucaria imhricata, Abies grandis, A. nordman- 

 niana, Picea Morinda, P. sitchensis, Sequoia 

 gigantea, Cryptomeria japonica, Thuya plicata, and 

 Juniperus virginiana have been cut down, and 

 portions of the converted wood used in various ways 

 by way of experiment in testing their quahty. 



Whilst carrying out these experiments, few 

 things have surprised me more than the way in 

 which the timber of certain species of coniferous 

 trees is affected by the particular quality of soil 

 on which it is produced ; indeed, the difference be- 

 tween immature and nearly fully matured timber 

 is trifling when compared with the quality as 

 affected by soil. One or two instances may be 

 cited as examples : In thinning a plantation 

 composed of Pseudotsuga Douglasii, Pinus Strobus, 

 and Picea Morinda, fifty-three out of seventy-one 

 specimens of P. Strobus were pumped or rotten 

 at the core, and utterly unfitted for use in any 

 way. The trees were growing on sandy loam, had 

 been planted twenty-six years, and contained, on 

 an average, 25 feet of wood each. Now, having 

 felled trees of the same kind on various other 

 qualities of soil, and found the timber perfectly 

 sound, deductions will not be difficult to make. 

 A still more curious example of how coniferous 

 timber is affected by the soil on which it was 

 grown was illustrated a few years ago on an estate 

 in Ireland. A large number of fencing poles, 

 Larch and Scotch Pine, were being cut from two 

 neighbouring plantations of the same age and size, 

 but growing on widely different soils — peaty and 

 gravelly. The Scotch Pine timber from the peaty 

 soil was soft, spongy, and nearly white in colour, 



