42 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



equally of the same height, and not that one should over- 

 shadow the others. As soon as this ten acres is cleared, he 

 sows it with new seed of fir and pine mixed, at an expense 

 of about 2s. 6d. per acre. 



The next year he clears off another hundredth part, or 

 ten acres, sows it in like manner, and so on year after 

 year. 



In ten years' time he goes back to his first ten acres to 

 clear them out. The young trees which he thins out will 

 be by this time about ten feet high, and will serve for pit 

 props and other small poles. 



In ten years he will thus have twenty acres of productive 

 forest his ten acres of old wood which he clears off, and 

 the ten acres of young wood which he thins out. His older 

 timber is yearly increasing in value, and as he can clear his 

 young plantings every tenth year, in twenty years he has ten 

 acres of old forest to cut down, ten acres of twenty years' 

 growth to thin out, and ten acres of ten years', and so he 

 goes on. His forests are yearly increasing in value, and 

 although he may not live to reap the full benefit of this 

 proper mode of management, he is sure to leave behind him 

 a valuable heir-loom to his family, for think what would be 

 the value of these forests if they were thus managed ! Un- 

 fortunately, however, this requires time, as the forest will 

 not give a return for the capital laid out upon it in the first 

 year's crop, like a plough-field, and as long as the ready penny 

 is looked after so much more than the slow shilling, and men 

 are either unable or unwilling to invest their capital in a safe 

 but slow speculation, it is hardly likely that this proper 

 system will be introduced into the management of the Swedish 

 forests. What a country Sweden would then be in a hundred 

 years hence ! This time must assuredly come, although 

 we may not live to see it. It is the want of proper manage- 

 ment that ruins these forests, quite as much as the axe. 



As Agardth properly observes, te If Sweden could only 

 arrive at such a position, that our landed proprietors would 

 no longer consider the land they hold as simple goods and 

 chattels, or a mere matter of merchandise which they are 



