A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



Thinning operations were usually begun at about 12 or 13 years and 

 repeated every four or five years till the plantations were 30 years of 

 age, after which they were continued every six or eight years for other 

 30 years. To ensure regularity, the thinnings of the old and the young 

 woods were so arranged that the whole area would be gone over at least 

 once every seven years. 



During the twenty-eight years from 1855 to 1883, in which 800 

 acres were planted but had not yet become old enough to yield appre- 

 ciable returns, the receipts obtained from the woodlands averaged i 

 los. i id. an acre, while the expenditure on them was >To I2J. 4^. per 

 acre, thus showing an average income of o 1 8j. yd. per acre from land 

 whose agricultural value varied, as already mentioned, from five shillings 

 to seven shillings and sixpence an acre. This is, of course, not net profit 

 or rental yielded by the land, because it includes the annual interest pay- 

 able on the capital locked up in forming the plantations ; but then, on 

 the other hand, it does not give any indication of the capital represented 

 by the growing crops of timber. Taking the whole wooded area of 

 2,800 acres into consideration, the average receipts have been i zs. id. 

 per acre, the expenditure jTo 8j. $d. an acre, and the income o 1 3^. %d. 

 per acre, while the crops still left to mature are estimated as being 

 worth from about 40 to >C an acre. Insufficient as these data are 

 for showing with anything like actuarial exactness the precise amount of 

 profit annually accruing from these investments in growing timber on 

 the Netherby estate, they nevertheless afford a tolerably clear proof that 

 the plantations have been profitable in themselves, while at the same 

 time the woodlands have also been indirectly of further benefit in 

 improving adjoining arable land through the shelter from wind afforded 

 to it. 



The woods on the Greystoke Estate, the property of H. C. Howard, 

 esq., are also of considerable extent. They amount altogether to 

 about i, 8 60 acres, of which 701 acres are old woods planted between 

 1746 and 1814, 294 acres planted from 182610 1850, 334 acres planted 

 between 1852 and 1880, and 531 acres of recent plantations formed 

 from 1 88 1 to 1900. The largest plantations are those of the year 1808, 

 when 200 acres were planted. The woods now consist generally of a 

 mixture of larch, sycamore, ash, oak, birch, beech, alder, spruce and 

 Scots pine ; while the general treatment accorded to them consists in 

 simply clear-felling a given area of woodland every year, and replanting 

 a corresponding acreage of recently cleared land or of other land which 

 it is desired to bring under wood. Planting is done both in autumn 

 and in spring, whenever the weather will permit. The plantations of 

 the last ten years have amounted to 360 acres, or an average of 36 acres 

 a year. 



The woodlands on the Brayton estate, the property of Sir 

 Wilfrid Lawson, bart., aggregate 1,503 acres. About three-fourths 

 of these are old woods of uncertain age, mainly consisting of 

 mixed hardwoods (though principally of oak) and often interspersed 



504 



