Afforesting Waste Lands and Financial Returns 291 



One hundred acres of common land were planted from 

 1852 to 1862. Larch was the principal crop, with a few 

 beech, Scotch pine, spruce and silver fir. The plantation 

 was thinned at intervals from 1871 to 1884, the thinnings 

 being sold for close on 500, but many trees were used for 

 fencing and estate purposes generally. The whole planta- 

 tion was felled in 1907, and realized fully 4,500, or at the 

 rate of 45 per acre. The larch on the lower portion aver- 

 aged 23 J ft. per tree, but on the exposed ground the trees 

 were only about one-third of that dimension. This planta- 

 tion has a northern aspect, and is situated at from 800 ft. 

 to 1,300 ft. above sea-level. After allowing for the cost of 

 planting and interest on the money expended, the annual 

 return per acre comes to about 20s. The adjoining heath- 

 covered lands let for about 2s. 6d. per acre. Again, on the 

 Countess of Seafield's estates, Scotland, on grazing land 

 which formerly brought in %d. per acre, Mr. Thomson, the 

 woods manager, tells me that, at .the age of forty-seven 

 years, Scotch fir realized 40 per acre ; while in another 

 wood the individual trees brought 24s. 6d. each. 



A larch plantation of 208 acres, on a steep hillside, was 

 felled at the age of fifty years. The actual returns during 

 that period were : from thinnings, 4,500 ; from final felling, 

 14,500 ; or fully 90 per acre. The original cost of plant- 

 ing was under 5 per acre, and the value of the land at thirty 

 years' purchase 7 10s. per acre, thus leaving a balance of 

 fully 78 per acre at the age of fifty years. 



The extensive hillside plantations formed by the late Lord 

 Powerscourt in Ireland, those at Glendalough in the same 

 country, formed by the Duke of Atholl between Dunkeld 

 and Blair Atholl. those at Glengoy, in Aberdeenshire, at 

 Strathkyle in Ross-shire, and at Gwydyr and Penrhyn 

 Castle in the Principality of Wales all of which were formed 

 over thirty-five years ago, account of the cost of formation 

 and management being strictly kept these surely afford 

 sufficient evidence not only of the profitable returns to be 

 obtained from woodlands, but of the feasibility of afforest- 

 ing mountain lands with vast benefit in the way of shelter 

 to the dreary, treeless, and bleak, exposed uplands where the 



