A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



had been kept in close cover, yet it is not improbable that actuarial 

 calculations would prove that under the given local circumstances this 

 system of treatment with early thinnings (and with pasturage in the 

 woods worth at least five shillings an acre per annum) has perhaps been 

 more remunerative than any more scientific sort of treatment of the 

 woods would have proved, unless the production of timber for profit 

 had formed the main object desired by the landowner. 



In planting for either shelter or profit in Cumberland there can be 

 no doubt that conifers are likely to prove the most successful. For 

 shelter the evergreen Scots pine and Douglas fir will be most 

 effective, while a mixture of larch will add to the profit. Taken as a 

 whole, the climate and the physical conditions of the county are far 

 more suitable for coniferous than for hardwood crops of timber, even 

 though a fine growth of oak and other broad-leaved trees (beech, syca- 

 more, elm, etc.) is often to be found in the lower situations, more 

 especially when well sheltered, as, for example, around the shores of 

 Derwentwater. 



In many cases, however, the mistake has been made of raising 

 pure or almost pure plantations of larch on the hillsides, and often on 

 soil and situations not satisfying its natural requirements in important 

 respects, in order to reap the advantage derivable from this fine timber 

 as compared with the less valuable pines and firs. The result of this has 

 only too frequently resulted in the fungous canker disease getting a firm 

 foothold among the young poles, thus spoiling their growth and destroy- 

 ing their utility, and rendering it impossible for them ever to develop 

 into valuable stems. So prevalent has the canker disease consequently 

 become in many parts of the county, since about the year 1840, that 

 the formation of mixed crops seems to hold out the best promise of 

 raising sound larch timber, the larch being, of course, judiciously 

 favoured at the different times of thinning. Even though apt to lose 

 its top from wind when grown in single specimens, Douglas fir is likely 

 to prove a very valuable tree for mixing along with larch, although the 

 assistance of Scots pine will usually be required on the poorer classes of 

 land. Some of the finest larch in the county is to be found growing 

 among the old oakwoods where they were probably planted first of all 

 as ' nurses,' and then subsequently allowed to stand and form part of the 

 main crop. 



During the course of last century planting of oak was often under- 

 taken on hillsides, with such want of success that sometimes hardly a 

 tree remains to mark the site of the plantation. It is only on the lower 

 and richer lands that the oak plantations can be said to have done well. 

 Even there the growth of the trees, originally planted with a view to 

 supply crooks and ship-building timber, is not usually of the straight, 

 clean description that now fetches the best market price ; and on such 

 lands being replanted, mixed conifer crops are likely to prove more 

 profitable than broadleaved trees. 



Owing to the heavy rainfall and the stiff soil and subsoil in many 



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