ROAD-MAKING. 201 



the value of the crop in the wood. Timber-merchants always look to the 

 ways and means of getting the timber removed to a market before pur- 

 chasing it, and will always give more for a lot of wood where there is a 

 good road to it than for a similar lot not easily accessible. I should say 

 that timber is worth from 15 to 20 per cent more where the roads are 

 good for its removal than where the reverse is the case, or where there 

 are no roads at all. 



In the formation of new plantations, spaces should always be left 

 unplauted for the purpose of forming roads. These lines of road should 

 be laid out before the planting begins, and of course the easiest route 

 should be chosen for the removal of the timber. In small plantations, 

 where there is no likelihood of any great amount of cartage, roads fifteen 

 feet wide will be sufficient. This will admit of two carts passing each 

 other. They should never be made less than what' will admit of two 

 carts or waggons passing each other freely. In extensive plantations 

 and forests the main roads should be made much wider. 



In an enclosure of four hundred and fifty acres, recently formed on 

 this estate for planting, I have laid out the roads of two widths. The 

 surface of the plantation is in some portions flat, with gentle undulations 

 throughout it. Main lines of roads are run through the plantation, and 

 between these main roads, and running full across the whole breadth 

 of the plantation, are smaller roads, connecting the main ones. All 

 the main roads are quite capable of being used for carts, but not all 

 the small ones, owing to the declivity of the surface. They are not 

 meant so much for carting, but they will come to be useful, when 

 the crop has grown, for the removal of thinnings to the main roads, 

 to which they can be dragged ; and they are also useful as shooting- 

 roads. 



The main roads are left thirty feet wide from the plants on the one 

 side to the plants on the other. This gives room for a space between 

 the plants and the open drains which are made, and also for the drains 

 themselves. This will be better understood by referring to fig. 74. 



From the plants on each side, as I have already stated, it is thirty feet 

 wide. From the first row of plants to the points a a is five feet ; the 



