Prices of Home-grown Timber 239 



PRICES OF TIMBER PER TON WEIGHT 



In several parts of the country, particularly Ireland, 

 timber is regularly sold by weight and the following prices 

 were realized previous to the war : 



s. d. s. d. 



Ash and sycamore ... 18 per ton. 



Beech 5 to 10 



Larch . . . . . 12 20 



Scotch pine, spruce and silver fir 80 



Spruce 8 10 



Oak ..... 15 



Elm and beech ... 10 



Hardwoods of pitwood size . 6 



Larch poles and pitwood (Wales) 9 10 



That the heavy importation of foreign woods has had a 

 prejudicial influence on the value of home-grown timbers is 

 realized by all those who are engaged in the trade. The 

 depreciation in price has, however, been so gradual that it 

 is difficult to realize this unless by comparing the prices of 

 to-day with those of, say, a hundred years ago. Several of 

 these comparisons clearly indicate that oak, at least, has 

 become much reduced in value, less so ash and elm, and the 

 following list of prices obtained in 1807 for timber on two 

 estates in Hants will serve to show that for trees of equal 

 size the price to-day is far behind that of a century ago. 



s. d. 



Oak averaging 9 cubic feet . .40 per foot. 

 Ash 7 23 



Elm 

 Beech 

 Sycamore 

 Fir 



22 .19 



14 ..16 



19 r , ..13 



11 1 3 



On another estate trees of about the same size brought : 

 oak, 4s. ; ash, Is. 6d. ; elm, etc., Is.; beech, Is. ; and firs, Is. per 

 cubic foot. When the small size of the individual trees is 

 taken into account, and even admitting that only the best 

 portion of each trunk was measured, the prices, as compared 

 with those of to-day, are exceedingly high, particularly for 

 oak, ash and fir. 



