222 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



course always deserve the preference in this re- 

 spect, as being by far the more profitable kinds of 

 trees to be grown in association with beech. In 

 the cooler climate of the Scottish Highlands the 

 growth of spruce is better than in the warm tracts 

 of southern England ; but there again the profit 

 it seems to promise by no means entitles it to 

 much consideration per se. Despite the fact that 

 close crops of spruce yield, from about 60 to 120 

 years of age, fully fifteen per cent, more wood than 

 the Scots pine, yet the additional fact that in the 

 north of Scotland, on the Novar estate in Ross- 

 shire, for example, spruce only fetches 3d. a 

 cubic foot against 3d. to 6d. for Scots pine, and 

 is. to is. 2d. for larch, robs its cultivation of 

 an attraction it would certainly offer if Scottish 

 ' Baltic deals ' commanded a better market price. 1 



1 To be of any practical use these details must extend so as to 

 show the prices ruling locally for other kinds of timber. These 

 are : oak and ash, is. to is. 6d. ; sycamore, is. to 55. ; elm and 

 horse-chestnut, is. ; beech, 6d. to is. ; lime, 4d. : for timber 

 growing in fairly accessible places. Local labour is paid at 175. 

 to 1 8s. a week for planting, and i8s. to 203. for timber work, 

 suitable bothies being provided to obviate loss of time in going 

 to and from work. There is probably no other commodity, 

 except perhaps building stone, subject to such differences in 

 local value as timber, owing to its weight and bulk. Hence the 

 necessity for, and the profit of, improving communications in 

 thickly-wooded districts. 



