THE NEW FORESTRY. 89 



England, it is said to have long been spreading spontaneously 

 there on heaths and other poor tracts from which large quanti- 

 ties of timber are disposed of successfully. There can hardly 

 be any doubt that a dry climate, with its greater amount of 

 sunshine, must have a consolidating effect upon the tissues, 

 and that the difference in quality observable in samples of 

 Scotch fir from different parts of the country may be explained 

 in that way. It is worth noting that the remains of natural 

 and other Scotch fir forests in the north of Scotland are mostly, 

 if not all, situated within the drier and sunnier belt on the 

 eastern side, where also the. cereal crops come to the greatest 

 perfection. The whole of Forfar, Kincardine, Banff, Nairn, 

 Elgin, the greater part of Aberdeen, and part of Perth and 

 Inverness, lie within the dry belt, and in some of these localities 

 the best Scotch fir in Scotland is produced. Mr. Alexander 

 Smith, C.E. and surveyor, Aberdeen, writing in the " Highland 

 Society's Transactions," vol. vi., p. 277, states that, on the well- 

 wooded estate of Moneymusk, in east Aberdeen, the Scotch 

 fir is the best produced on Don side, and always commands a 

 ready sale. Moneymusk is within the drier belt, and we can 

 endorse the above statement from enquiries made by ourselves 

 on the spot. 



After the fir and pine timber comes that of the oak and 

 ash. The demand for English oak exceeds that of all other 

 sorts of hard-woods put together, and a good deal of the finest 

 goes to America. Trade reports of 1898 mention the export 

 of oak to the States as steadily increasing. Railway com- 

 panies consume enormous quantities of oak, sometimes quite 

 clearing the market of certain sizes, according to timber-trade 

 reports, which state that, " it is not an uncommon occurrence 

 for a railway company to take the whole of what is obtainable 

 in a season." 



Ash is more profitable to grow than oak, as it soon reaches 

 a saleable size and fetches a good price. Of course, although 

 forest trees thrive in a great variety of soils, it is a good plan 

 in deciding what to plant on an estate to look round the 

 locality and see which species succeed best, especially under 

 plantation culture, because although almost any species which 

 will succeed as an isolated park tree or garden specimen will 

 also succeed under plantation culture, there are some species 

 that will grow well in a sheltered plantation that may not 

 succeed in the open. Of the latter may be mentioned as 

 examples, the common and other spruces, the Douglas fir, and 

 the Wellingtonia, which in keen, cold localities on the east 



