PROFITABLE TIMBER TREES 



55 



worth the same price in fifty years' time or not. It may 

 be worth 6d., Is., or 2s. per foot, according to the 

 supply of and demand for it. But all this is unknown 

 to the man who plants that species to-day, just as its 

 present price was unknown to the planter of fifty years 

 ago. Take, for instance, woods which to-day are practically 

 worthless for selling purposes in many parts of England, 

 such as spruce or poplar. A special use for such woods, 

 such as pulp manufacture, may increase their value 50 or 

 100 per cent. Or, again, the value of a timber may depend, 

 as it often does depend even now, upon the quantity to 

 be disposed of in the district. Small lots may be com- 

 paratively worthless owing to the extra cost in dealing 

 with them, and their inability to meet a steady and constant 

 demand ; whilst large quantities give rise to special methods 

 for profitably dealing with them, as, for instance, chair- 

 making in beech districts, or hoop- or hurdle-making amongst 

 coppice woods. The starting or cessation of a colliery, 

 again, may render small timber and poles profitable or value- 

 less, as the case may be, and may completely upset precon- 

 ceived ideas or estimates. 



But, accepting the situation of affairs in the timber trade 

 in the same way as all human affairs have to be accepted 

 with faith the planter of timber trees has every reason to 

 anticipate the continuance of a demand for good clean timber 

 of those species which are adapted for various purposes in 

 the numerous industries of the country. That new industries 

 may arise and new uses be found for many woods which are 

 now of little value is quite likely, but it is better policy to 

 rely on the existing and probable than on the non-existing 

 and unknown uses of British-grown timber trees; and we 

 may reasonably leave possibilities until we have dealt with 

 probabilities, and briefly glance at those species which are 

 capable of yielding a profit at present prices. 



Of the hundreds of trees, both coniferous and broad - 

 leaved, introduced during the last three hundred years, very 

 few can be said to have proved themselves more valuable 

 than indigenous species for economic planting in England. 

 In many cases their non-success may be due less to their 

 specific rate of growth and quality of timber than to their 



