832 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



average about 90 feet by 8 feet, and grow at the foot of a bank, in deep sand with 

 pebbles in it, which looks like an old bank of the Tay, which is not far off. In The 

 Garden for 19th May 1900, some particulars are given of the trees here. One, 

 planted in 1847, measured on nth August 1892, 86^ feet by 8 feet 10 inches, and 

 on 24th March 1900, 97 feet 4 inches by 9 feet 10 inches. A great many others were 

 of about the same size. This proves the diminishing rate of increase, both in height 

 and girth, after forty to fifty years' growth, even when the lower branches remain. 

 Mr. Fothringham states that all these measurements were taken by sending men 

 or boys up the trees, and not with a dendrometer. He adds that the temperature 1 

 in February 1895 was for several days below zero, and on one night went down 

 to - 1 1. 



There is probably no plantation in Great Britain about which so much has 

 been written as the Taymount plantation on the estate of the Earl of Mansfield, in 

 Perthshire. It lies about seven miles north of Perth, one mile from Stanley Station, 

 and may be seen from the Highland Railway, which passes close to the east of it. 

 The plantation covers eight acres of flat land, which is locally known as "till," two 

 feet of light loam over red clay, and which may be worth for agricultural purposes 

 12s. to 15s. per acre. This plantation was first fully described in the Gardeners 

 Chronicle of 10th, 17th, and 24th November 1888, by Dr. Schlich, than whom there 

 can be no higher authority. It was planted by the late W. M'Corquodale in the 

 spring of i860, with Douglas firs, two-year seedlings, two years transplanted, at 

 9 feet by 9 feet apart, with larch four years old, between every two firs, and an 

 additional line of larch between every two rows, so that the trees stood \\ feet apart, 

 and each acre contained 538 Douglas and 161 3 larch. The latter were gradually 

 thinned out, and were all removed by 1880. The first thinning of Douglas took 

 place in 1887, when about half the trees had already disappeared, 277 per acre only 

 remaining. Of these 75 per acre were cut, leaving 202 per acre. 



Dr. Schlich made a careful estimate of a sample plot measuring -^ of an 

 acre of average appearance, and had a tree felled to ascertain its actual contents ; 

 and from these data came to the conclusion that the total per acre was 3738 cubic 

 feet of wood over 3 inches diameter, exclusive of top and branches, which gives an 

 annual increment of 133 cubic feet per acre. But this estimate being the gross 

 volume, when reduced by about one-fourth, makes the quarter-girth measurement, as 

 adopted in English practice, to be 2934 cubic feet. 



After inspecting a sample area of Scots pine in the same district, Dr. Schlich 

 goes on to say, "If grown in a well-stocked, overcrowded wood, and in localities 

 of equal quality, Douglas fir is not likely to produce more solid wood, during the 

 first thirty or forty years, than the larch, and probably also not more than Scotch 

 pine." He then goes into careful estimates of the probable future increase of the 

 Douglas, based on data taken from America, where Dr. Mayr found that in the most 

 favourable localities in the Cascade Mountains the average height of mature Douglas 



1 At Balmoral, where there are 25,000 to 30,000 trees, planted in the 'eighties, on a northern aspect at 1000 to 1200 

 feet altitude, Mr. Michie informs me in a letter that this severe frost, when the temperature fell to - 17$, did no harm to the 

 Douglas fir. 



