PINACE.E 521 



The quantity of timber available for cutting in the United 

 States alone in 1919 was given as 160 bilhon board ft. The 

 annual production of shingles in the United States is from 

 8,000,000,000 to 12,000,000,000, and of this quantity 70 to 80 per 

 cent, is made up of wood of Thuya plicata. This tree, with T. 

 occidentalis, furnishes about 65 per cent, of the wood used for 

 telegraph and telephone poles and for piling in the United States ; 

 the number of poles made of these two trees in 1915 is given as 

 2,521,769. Box-wood absorbs a very large quantity of timber, 

 whilst a good deal is used for boat and house-building, etc. In 

 addition to the timber in the United States, British Columbia 

 estimates her standing timber of this species at 77,968,000,000 

 board ft.^ The wood can be obtained in the rough, or in a partly 

 manufactured or manufactured state, from Vancouver and 

 other British Columbia ports and from the Western United 

 States. The Indians have hollowed out the trunks and used 

 them for canoes for a very long period, whilst after macerating and 

 beating the inner bark, they obtained fibre which they wove 

 into mats, baskets, hats and other articles. The flexible young 

 branches have also been used for basket work, and the roots for 

 fish hooks. 



T. plicata is used in Britain as an ornamental tree, for hedges, 

 and also for sylvicultural purposes. In parks and gardens, 

 either as clumps or as isolated specimens, it is a beautiful object, 

 its leafy branches being retained to the ground-line. As a hedge 

 plant it provides good shelter and stands annual pruning well. 

 It is promising as a timber tree, and an idea of its value for 

 the purpose can be obtained from its behaviour in Claudy House 

 Wood Plantation, Gairletter, Benmore, Argyllshire. ^ This 

 plantation was made during the autumn of 1876 and 1877. It 

 was originally 5 acres in extent, the soil being chiefly morainic in 

 character, overlying rocks which are chiefly mica-schists and 

 schistose grits, at altitudes of 12-130 ft. above sea-level. The 

 ground was thinly covered with oak. About 15 oak trees per 

 acre were left and underplanting was carried out with a mixture 

 of Douglas fir. Thuya plicata and a few larch spaced 4 ft. apart ; 

 2 -year seedlings and 2 -year and 1-year transplants were used, 

 and the notching method of planting adopted. The oaks were 

 eventually removed, causing some injury to the young crop, and 

 following their removal there was a serious loss in one part of the 

 plantation by wdnd-blown trees. In 1912 the average height of 

 the Douglas fir was 70 ft. and of the Thuya 60 ft. The stems 

 numbered about 890 to the acre and the volume of timber per 

 acre, according to quarter-girth measurement to 5 in. diameter, 



* Whitford and Craig, Forests of British Columbia, p. 241 (1918). 

 2 Transactions of the Royal Scottish Arbor icultural Society, xxviii, pt. i, p. 107 

 (1914). 



