88 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



the earliest returns in the shape of poles, and the mature crop 

 is reaped at the end of one hundred years, or about twenty- 

 five years sooner than the hard-woods, such as beech, and fifty 

 years earlier than the oak. These are a few of the species 

 then that the forester should i plant largely wherever they will 

 grow, because while the demand for the other kinds of timber 

 is local or limited, the demand for pine timber is great and 

 universal. The four species named should succeed well in 

 almost every county in Britain and Ireland under dense plan- 

 tation culture. The .spruce may be a little capricious, 

 preferring a rather cool and moist climate and sheltered gullies, 

 but the larch, when it escapes the disease, grows well and 

 fast, north or south. As to the Scotch fir, it seems equally at 

 home in the Highlands of Scotland, on the shores of the 

 English Channel, or the sandy flats of Holland Schlich 

 says " it is eminently " a lowland tree and prefers southern 

 aspects in mountains. We have had opportunities of examin- 

 ing the principal Scotch fir tracts in the New Forest and 

 elsewhere in the south, and wherever the ground was naturally 

 well-drained the timber appeared to be equal, age for age, 

 to much of the Scotch fir grown in the north. Fine red-hearted 

 stuff that we saw cut up in the saw mills in the forest, the 

 consumers told us, was superior to much of the foreign red 

 deal imported, and much of it is used for indoor joinery. On 

 the Beaulieu estate, not far from Lyndhurst, there are. mature 

 plantations of Scotch fir, fairly crowded, where the trees run 

 from one hundred to one hundred and thirty feet in height, 

 and the timber, of which, the clerk of works there and others 

 assured us, was of the best quality. The groins or break- 

 waters which protect the beach on the Solent, opposite the Isle 

 of Wight, are all constructed of Scotch fir from the New 

 Forest, and both strength and endurance are required. To 

 us, this New Forest Scotch fir appeared to be superior to much 

 that is produced on the level lands of no great elevation in 

 central Germany and in Holland, and superior to much of the 

 north of Europe "red deal" imported from abroad. There 

 need be little or no fear, indeed, of clean Scotch fir timber 

 finding a ready market, no matter where it is grown in Great 

 Britain. A well-drained soil and dry climate has probably 

 more to do with the quality of the timber than anything else. 

 In those parts of England where the Scotch fir thrives so well, 

 as in Hampshire, Norfolk, Surrey, and elsewhere, the rainfall 

 is the lightest in England, and the soil sandy, or dry and poor ; 

 and although the Scotch fir is not indigenous to the south of 



