402 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



termed, in other words a young crop growiug out of the stumps of the 

 trees recently cut down. This territory was leased for ninety-nine years by 

 a company of Liverpool gentlemen and dealt with as follows : — 



It Avas subdivided into about twenty sections and one was cut down 

 every year in spring and summer, when the sap was up, and barked chiefly 

 by women and children ; the bark being taken to Liverpool and the timber 

 converted into charcoal for smelting iron ore — which was brought from 

 Ulverston to Bunawe by the company's schooners — there converted into 

 charcoal bar-iron and taken back to Liverpool as ballast, the vessels being 

 filled up with the bark and wool of the district. 



The iron produced at this small furnace brought the highest price in the 

 British market, being sold for from £10 to £15 per ton, and was utilized for 

 what is known as cold-drawn wire. 



Each subdivision when cut was protected by rough fencing to prevent 

 cattle from eating the young shoots and the finest oak tree in the division 

 was left as a standard at each periodical cutting. The result of this 

 forestry management was that three or four successive generations made 

 fortunes, and the forests, when I left Scotland in 1860, were at least as 

 flourishing as at the beginning of the lease. The lessees never planted a 

 tree, but merely conserved and utilized what they found on the ground. 



The forests here are not deciduous, and, when cut down, the stumps 

 gradually die out; at the same time they reproduce themselves from the 

 fallen berries, but are very slow of growth. 



I counted 500 rings on the planed stump of a black-pine tree in Sea- 

 ward Bush, the diameter of which was only about three feet, whereas a 

 healthy larch would exceed that in about a tenth of the time, and the timber 

 be of more value for every purpose, from the construction of a wheel-barrow 

 to that of a ship. 



Larch is also very durable in or out of the water. Piles of only thirty 

 years' growth were used in extending one of the Oban jetties in Argyleshire, 

 and after being twenty-five years in use were as sound as when driven, and 

 not touched by a Teredo. 



Larch and fir are used for coal-pit props and railway-sleepers throughout 

 Great Britain. 



In the course of a few years all the railway- sleepers in New Zealand 

 will have to be replaced, which will pretty well exhaust the available 

 timber suitable for the purpose, hence the desirability of planting trees of 

 quicker growth than the native ones. It is said that larch and fir will not 

 thrive here, as they happened to fail with some run-holders in Otago. It 

 would be surprising if they did thrive, under the circumstances ; having 

 been taken from a cosy nursery and planted into holes of solid clay, where 



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