222 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
course always deserve the preference in this re- 
spect, as being by far the more profitable kinds of 
trees to be grown in association with beech. In 
the cooler climate of the Scottish Highlands the 
growth of spruce is better than in the warm tracts 
of southern England; but there again the profit 
it seems to promise by no means entitles it to 
much consideration per se. Despite the fact that 
close crops of spruce yield, from about 60 to 120 
years of age, fully fifteen per cent. more wood than 
the Scots pine, yet the additional fact that in the 
north of Scotland, on the Novar estate in Ross- 
shire, for example, spruce only fetches 3d. a 
cubic foot against 3d. to 6d. for Scots pine, and 
1s. to 1s. 2d. for larch, robs its cultivation of 
an attraction it would certainly offer if Scottish 
‘Baltic deals’ commanded a better market price.’ 
1 To be of any practical use these details must extend so as to 
show the prices ruling locally for other kinds of timber. These 
are: oak and ash, Is. to 1s. 6d.; sycamore, Is. to 5s.; elm and 
horse-chestnut, Is. ; beech, 6d. to 1s.; lime, 4d.: for timber 
growing in fairly accessible places. Local labour is paid at 17s. 
to 18s. a week for planting, and 18s. to 20s. for timber work, 
suitable bothies being provided to obviate loss of time in going 
to and from work. There is probably no other commodity, 
except perhaps building stone, subject to such differences in 
local value as timber, owing to its weight and bulk. Hence the 
necessity for, and the profit of, improving communications in 
thickly-wooded districts. 
