164 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



Taking the Scotch fir as a standard, foresters, knowing the rate 

 of growth of different species, may calculate approximately, 

 from the above table, the yield to be expected from the kinds 

 of timber trees usually grown. 



In Sweden, where the forestry is not quite up to the German 

 standard, the crops are also good. The following is a Scotch 

 estimate of these as published in the " North British Agricul- 

 turist '' report of the Scottish Arboricultural Society's excur- 

 sion to Sweden, in July, 1902 : Clumps of good larch timber 

 were seen, the stems being tall, clean, and cylindrical, and the 

 trees are said to be free from the dreaded Peziza. The age 

 of these larches is fifty-seven years, and the total height of the 

 trees is about 75 feet. The stems girth from nine to ten 

 inches under the bark at breast height, and there are 1 90 stems 

 to the acre, giving a volume of 3,700 cubic feet (quarter-girth 

 measurement). These larches have been under-planted with 

 spruce and beech, the former being twenty. years old, and the 

 latter seventeen years. Finspang is one of the largest forest 

 estates in Sweden. Nineteen million trees have been planted, 

 and besides this nearly four tons of seed have been sown, while 

 the cost of cultivation has been slightly over seven shillings 

 per acre for the period since 1860 to date. The pine forests 

 are thirty-eight years old, and are now about sixty feet high, 

 and contain 2,800 cubic feet per acre, and they are worked on 

 a rotation of ninety years." 



Mark the age, height, under-planting, and number of feet 

 to the acre here. In one case the trees are about middle age, 

 and in the other only thirty-eight years old, yet the yield per 

 acre is nearly 3,000 and 4,000 feet. After these ages the 

 rate of annual increment increases rapidly, being doubled, 

 trebled, and quadrupled towards the end of the rotation 

 amounting probably to from 10,000 to 15,000 feet per acre. 



As regards the climate where these forests grow, we feel 

 sure, from a critical inquiry into the subject and from observa- 

 tion, that it has nothing to do with the quality of the timber 

 produced as compared with that produced in Great Britain and 

 Ireland. The conditions of temperature, rainfall, soil, gales, 

 etc., are much the same as in this country. The fine level 

 lands are not, as a rule, planted in Germany, but the mountain 

 ranges are usually unbroken forest of a density unknown with 

 us. The principal timbered regions of Germany and North 

 Europe lie in the same parallel as the British Islands, or further 

 north than that, and in Central Germany the mountains are 

 clothed with timber up to three thousand feet and upwards. 



