PROFITABLE TIMBER TREES 99 



to be used for three - fourths of the purposes to which 

 imported wood is applied. Yet the present attitude of the 

 English forester towards this tree is one of undisguised 

 contempt, and any reference to it as a profitable timber 

 tree is received with ridicule. 



Before describing the method of growing this tree in a 

 way likely to prove profitable, it may be advisable to define 

 clearly its position in the forest economy of this or any 

 other country. Scots fir may be said, together with birch, 

 to be the advance guard of forest vegetation in Great 

 Britain, and the more closely it is confined to poor soils 

 the better the quality of the timber it produces, and the 

 better the financial returns are likely to be. Planted in 

 rich good soils, it probably deserves all that can be said 

 against it. Its timber is coarse-grained, knotty, and decays 

 rapidly, and is not suitable for any but temporary and 

 unimportant uses. But on dry gravels and sands which 

 are often too poor for most trees, Scots fir timber, if grown 

 thick and close from the start, is invariably of good quality, 

 and equal, when properly seasoned, to a good deal of that 

 imported. 



Of course, so long as foreigners can send us this wood 

 thoroughly seasoned, and cut into sizes most convenient for 

 the joiner and builder, at prices which leave nothing for the 

 costs of artificial production, it is difficult to attract the 

 attention of timber merchants to home-grown Scots fir. 

 In all building specifications, foreign wood is invariably 

 stipulated for, and it would be quite useless for any timber 

 merchant to attempt to cater for the timber trade with 

 acknowledged home-grown timber under present conditions. 

 But will these conditions continue ? Will improved methods 

 of sylviculture raise the quality of the home-grown Scots fir 

 on the one hand, and will the supply of foreign wood either 

 fall off or its quality deteriorate on the other ? We firmly 

 believe that both these questions may be answered in the 

 affirmative, and that the prices obtainable for home-grown 

 Scots fir timber fifty years hence will well repay the cost 

 of cultivation and leave something over. 



The qualities which builders and joiners prize most highly 

 in pine timber are freedom from knots and uniformity of 



