202 FORESTRY IN THE UNTIED KINGDOM. 



certain diameter at an earlier age than is the case when 

 growing timber trees with clean boles. 



4. Yield and Fiuancud Results. 



In attempting to answer the question, what will be the 

 yield and financial results produced by afforesting mountain 

 and heath lands in this country, we meet with great difficulties. 

 The most natural way would be to ascertain what the results 

 of forestry on similar lands have been in the past. That 

 attempt would lead to disappointment, because, in the first 

 place, it is almost impossible at present to obtain in this 

 country data which would conclusively show what yield to 

 expect, and, secondly, the few data available as to receipts 

 and expenses are almost invariably rendered useless by the 

 fact that many items are included under expenses which 

 have little or nothing to do with forestry by itself. Again, 

 it may be said that the returns hitherto yielded by British 

 woodlands might in many, if not in most, cases be doubled 

 by following the rules of rational sylviculture and by systematic 

 management. An example will best illustrate this. 



There is probably no country in the world which has such 

 complete records of the past management of woods as the 

 kingdom of Saxony. That country possesses 428,000 acres 

 of State forests which occupy good, bad and indifferent land, 

 less of the first and more of the others. The forests are 

 chiefly found in the hills, where they go up to 3,000 feet 

 above sea level. The systematic management of the forests 

 was commenced rather more than 100 years ago, and authentic 

 records are available from the year 1817 up to the present 

 time. They show that the outturn in 1817 was 61 cubic 

 feet of wood (timber and firewood) per acre, and 92 cubic 

 feet in 1893, representing an increase of 50 per cent. The 

 average stock per acre standing in the forests rose from 2,173 

 cubic feet in 1844 to 2,(J58 cubic feet in 1893, or an increase 

 of 22 per cent. This shows that the forests were worked in 



