THE NEW FORESTRY. IOI 



of the finest examples in Scotland. The tree should be grown 

 in crowded plantations by itself in order to cause the lower 

 branches to be shed early. Under such conditions probably 

 no other forest tree would reach, large and useful pole size so 

 soon, but, unfortunately, it has not been grown in that way as 

 yet, and examples we have seen have been of the worst descrip- 

 tion as timber-trees, being clothed to their base with branches 

 that produced huge knots at their junction with the trunk, 

 which was also too tapering. In one well-known plantation 

 the forester had sawn the lower branches off, a practice that 

 would have been unnecessary had the trees been sufficiently 

 crowded. The timber of the Douglas fir has been sold at 

 one shilling per cubic foot, it is said, but as that price probably 

 included the cost of delivery to the consumer the net price 

 might be much less. We have seen the best plantations, and 

 our idea was that the timber was not worth the above figure 

 in the wood. We believe that by planting the tree from two 

 to three feet apart, and letting it , alone for fifteen or twenty 

 years, a crop of pit-props of excellent quality could be 

 produced that would pay the grower, and probably no other 

 fir tree would produce good deals so soon. Sections of trees 

 about nineteen years old, that we have seen, had a diameter of 

 eighteen inches, indicating, an extraordinary rate of growth. 

 Sections from trees felled ten years ago or more showed heart- 

 wood colouring to within two-and-a-haif to three inches from the 

 bark, the sap wood being white and the heart-wood of a fine 

 reddish shade, both taking on a finely polished surface. We 

 should say that this tree would produce a good useful deal at 

 an early age of a quality between that of the spruce and 

 Scotch fir. Such, rapid formation of the heart-wood is remark- 

 able, and is certainly not found in any other fir that we know of. 

 In all the plantations of this tree that we have seen the trees 

 have been rough and extremely tapering — of bad shape for 

 commercial purposes, that is to say ; but reckoning from such 

 data as we have, there is little doubt but that in a plantation 

 sufficiently crowded to cause the trees to begin shedding .their 

 lower branches early, trees squaring from ten to twelve inches' in 

 the middle, cylindrical in shape, and clean, could be produced in 

 from thirty to forty years — a rate of growth exceeding that of all 

 our other forest trees, and representing a rate of production per 

 acre far exceeding anything yet recorded. The capabilities 

 of the tree as a timber producer have really not been tested 

 yet, ( owing to the severe thinnings it has been subjected to, 

 but it is well worth experimenting with under dense culture 



