THE NEW FORESTRY. 95 



in the shape of poles, and the mature crop is reaped at the end 

 of one hundred years, or about twenty-five years sooner than 

 the hard-woods, such as beech, and fifty years earlier than the 

 oak. These are a few of the species then that the forester 

 should plant largely wherever they will grow, because while 

 the demand for the other kinds of timber is local or limited, 

 the demand for pine timber is great and universal. The four 

 species named should succeed well in almost every county in 

 Britain and Ireland, under dense plantation culture. The 

 spruce may be a little capricious, preferring a rather cool and 

 moist climate and sheltered gullies, but the larch, when it 

 escapes the disease, grows well and fast, north or south As 

 to the Scotch fir, it seems equally at home in the Highlands of 

 Scotland, on the shores of the English Channel, or the sandy 

 flats of Holland. Schlich says " it is eminently " a lowland 

 tree and prefers southern aspects in mountains. We have 

 had opportunities of examining the principal Scotch fir tracts 

 in the New Forest and elsewhere in the south, and wherever 

 the ground was naturally well-drained the timber appeared to 

 be equal, age for age, to much of the Scotch fir grown, in the 

 north. Fine red-hearted stuff that we saw cut up in the saw 

 mills in the forest, the consumers told us, was superior to much 

 of the foreign red deal imported, and much of it is used for 

 indoor joinery. On the Beaulieu estate, not far from Lynd- 

 hurst, there are mature plantations of Scotch fir, fairly crowded, 

 where the trees run from one hundred to one hundred and 

 thirty feet in height, and the timber of which, the clerk of 

 works there and others assured us, was of the best quality. 

 The groins or break-waters which protect the beach on the 

 Solent, opposite the Isle of Wight, are all constructed of Scotch 

 fir from the New Forest, and both strength and endurance are 

 required. To us, this New Forest Scotch fir appeared to be 

 superior to much that is produced on the level lands of no great 

 elevation in Central Germany and in Holland, and superior to 

 much of the north of Europe " red deal " imported from abroad. 

 There need be little or no fear, indeed, of clean Scotch fir 

 timber finding a ready market, no matter where it is grown in 

 Great Britain. A well-drained soil and dry climate has pro- 

 bably more to do with the quality of the timber than anything 

 else. In those parts of England where the Scotch fir thrives 

 so well, as in Hampshire, Norfolk, Surrey, and elsewhere, the 

 rainfall is the lightest in England, and the soil sandy, or dry 

 and poor ; and although the Scotch fir is not indigenous to the 

 south of England, it is said to have long been spreading spon- 



