ESSAY ON FUEL PLANTATIONS. G3 



plant should be pub out 6 feet x G feet, this distance 

 will allow of thinning out in the ninth year if the trees have 

 grown well. In the first year the plants may require a 

 slight shade of anything obtainable, such as grass, pieces of 

 palmyra or cocoanut leaves, &c., shading will save watering. 

 After the first year the young trees should take care of 

 themselves. In the ninth year it will be necessary to thin 

 the trees unless coppicing should be resorted to. I confess 

 the thinning process seems to me to be the most paying 

 process in the end, for the casuariiia is not only a good 

 firewood but a fair building timber, and by thinning out 

 at the end of forty or fifty years, some good building timber 

 would be available. Wight states "that the timber is 

 without exception the strongest for bearing cross strains." 

 In coppicing, it must be observed that all the trees are cut 

 over at once, and all the stools have an equal start, but in 

 thinning out, the shoots that come from the stools are poor, 

 for the standing trees get the start of them and absorb an 

 undue amount of food to the detriment of the coppiced stools. 

 It may be mentioned that the ground being pure sand, there 

 are no weeds. In the ninth year, the trees will have at- 

 tained an average height of 60 feet with a diameter at the 

 base of 8 inches tapering off: to 4 inches at the top. In the 

 Forest Report for 1872 and 1873, page 68 : "The largest 

 trees seven years old averaged 60 feet high and 30 inches in 

 circumference at the ground, there are twenty thousand of 

 them." At this age we proceed to coppice. Allowing for 

 weakly trees and failures at 10 per cent, the returns may be 

 taken as follows : Five hundred trees full grown averaging 

 6 inches x 6 inches, for 50 feet = 12 J cubic feet a tree; 

 then 500 trees x 12J cubic feet = 6,250 cubic feet x 60 Ibs. 

 (weight of a cubic foot) = 375,000 Ibs. and if we say half this 

 weight for the other 500 trees, then we have for the acre 

 562,500 Ibs., plus the tops which sell well as small wood, ten 

 feet of tops equal 60 Ibs. x 1,000 trees = 60,000 Ibs. or in 

 all 622,500 Ibs. = 277 tons at 8 rupees a ton all round 



