Pseudotsuga 833 



firs on the best soil was 213 feet, with a diameter of 6^ feet, whilst in Montana it 

 only reached an average height of 148 feet, with a diameter of 2.6 feet, thus showing 

 what an immense influence the soil and rainfall have on the growth of this tree. 



From a cross section of Douglas fir grown in Washington and then in the 

 museum at Cooper's Hill, Dr. Schlich remarks "that the rate of growth indicated 

 in this section, up to thirty years old, resembles that of an average tree in the 

 Taymount plantation in a striking degree, as follows : diameter of average tree at 

 Taymount at 4^ feet, 1 2 inches ; diameter of thirty years' growth on the section from 

 America, 11.9 inches. 



After visiting a second growth area of pure Douglas fir on Ladds farm, about 

 four miles from Portland, Oregon, which was believed to be of about fifty years' 

 growth ; I came to precisely the same conclusion, and though I had not then seen 

 Dr. Schlich's article, I wrote in my journal at the time, that the trees in Oregon 

 were very similar in density to those at Taymount, but decidedly cleaner and better 

 grown, and having regard to their greater age and better soil, they might average 

 100 feet by 4 feet, and I estimated their cubic contents at something like 6000 feet 

 per acre. 



When I first visited Taymount, in April 1904, I determined to estimate it for 

 myself, without regard to what others had done. I therefore paced an area of 100 

 yards long by 50 yards wide in what I thought a fair average of the whole planta- 

 tion, and found that there were on it ninety-nine trees of the first size, and fifty trees 

 of the second. I did not reckon a number of other trees, which were so small, 

 crooked, or poor, that they could not have been sold profitably with the better ones ; 

 and, judging from a fallen tree which I was able to measure accurately, which was 

 55 feet long by 10 inches quarter-girth, equal to 38 cubic feet, came to the conclusion 

 that the total volume of saleable timber at forty-four years after planting, or forty- 

 eight years from the seed, did not much exceed 5000 feet per acre. 



Sir Hugh Beevor visited Taymount in the autumn after I was there, and made 

 an estimate in a different way by taking three different areas of acre each, and 

 measuring everything on those areas. He found 96 trees of 12 inches quarter-girth 

 and upwards at six feet from ground; 44 of 10 and 11 inches; 44 of below 10 

 inches ; and estimated the total contents per acre at 6226 cubic feet. 



I revisited Taymount in September 1906 in order to compare it again with 

 what I had seen since in America and in England. I measured twenty trees in 

 the fifth row and twenty in the tenth row from the bank on the east side of the 

 plantation nearest to the high road. I found that their average girth over bark at 

 5 feet was slightly under 4 feet, the largest being 7 feet 10 inches and the smallest 

 2 feet 3 inches. I estimated the average timber length of these trees at 60 feet, 

 and the quarter-girth, under bark at half this length, at 8 inches. If this is 

 approximately correct, their average contents would be 26 feet 8 inches, and their 

 total per acre something like 5400 feet, which very closely agrees with my previous 

 estimate, allowing for the increase of two years. 



A very different estimate was made by Dr. Somerville in a paper on " Exotic 

 Conifers in Britain," which was printed in the Journal of the Board of Agricul- 



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