MIXED AND PURE WOODS 49 



or sixty years. At that age the individual trees 

 have not reached the greatest growth of which 

 they are capable under favourable circumstances. 



The object sought has been to obtain a large 

 amount of cubic feet of timber in the wood, and 

 not large trees ; but the timber from trees fifty 

 or sixty years old is less hard and durable than 

 that supplied by trees of a greater age. It is 

 possible that, in the future, as a result of great 

 destruction of timber during the war, there 

 will be a considerable appreciation in the value 

 of larch from which 9 or 12-inch planks of 

 hard durable timber can be cut. The best way 

 to grow trees of this size is to plant a mixed 

 wood, principally with a view of growing oak, 

 to thin the larch vigorously even at a financial 

 loss, and to leave a residue of the best larch to 

 remain with the oak for eighty or ninety years. 

 The enchanced price per cubic foot may be a 

 sufficient compensation for the delay in the 

 returns from the larch, but as the enhancement 

 is only conjectural it would be hazardous to 

 sacrifice in the management the oak for the 

 larch. 



In a w^ood where the number of larch is so 

 great in proportion to all other trees that it is 

 substantially a pure larch wood, the introduction 

 4 



