40 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



the Duke's present head forester at Dunrobin, writing in the 

 " N.B. Agriculturist," of April gth, 1902, there are less 

 than 3,000 acres of hardwoods in the whole county. Whether 

 from ignorance, or because they have committed themselves 

 to the indiscriminate planting of spruce and Scotch fir, some 

 Scotch foresters, of professed experience, still write and speak 

 as if the production of hardwoods in the north of Scotland was 

 out of the question. Quite recently, a well-known member 

 of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society and factor on an 

 estate, wrote in a Scotch paper that one might as well expect to 

 grow good grapes in our gooseberry quarters as expect the ash, 

 elm, sycamore and beech to grow equally well beside the Scotch 

 fir. Comment on such ignorance is needless.* I have, in another 

 chapter, shown what might be done in growing pine timber 

 alone, to show what scope the timber grower has in this 

 country ; but trusting to one kind of crop is not suggested, 

 and the extent to which spruce and Scotch fir has been 

 planted in Scotland, almost to the exclusion of hardwoods, 

 has impressed me much during the past few years. Owners 

 of woods cannot be too careful in the selection of the kinds 

 of trees to plant, and should never forget that density, a 

 hitherto neglected factor, has much to do with the production 

 of good timber trees in cold and exposed situations. In 

 Scotland the oak does not reach the dimensions that it does in 

 England, but according to Grigor, second edition, page 270, it 

 produces a good crop ; and where the oak will grow, most other 

 broad-leaved species will do better. Grigor writes : " One 

 of the finest oak,, forests in Scotland is that at Darnaway, in 

 Morayshire. Between the years 1830 and 1840 the sales of 

 timber and bark ranged from 4,000 to 5,000 yearly. The 

 oak timber usually sold at from 2s. to 33. per cubical foot, and 

 bark varied from 6 to g per ton. The age of the timber 

 ranged from thirty to eighty years ; and, after paying every 

 expense during the growth of the timber, the revenue of the 

 forest per acre was double that of the finest arable land in the 

 country." 



The same writer also furnishes remarkable examples of the 

 ash, beech and sycamore, and other hardwoods, in various 

 parts of the north of Scotland. 



Col. F. Bailey, also writing on this subject in relation to the 



* N.B. Agriculturist, April 2nd, 1902." On the Alps the ash, elm, beech, 

 sycamore, and Scots fir thrive respectively up to an elevation of from 4,000 

 to 6,000 feet, proving that these five species at least are likely to flourish 

 together at the two highest and most northern situations ever likely to be 

 planted in the British Islands." 



