THE NEW FORESTRY. 1 59 



that received for rails and stakes below that size, it is prefer- 

 able to delay thinning until the measureable size is reached. 

 Spruce and Scotch fir poles of small size are of least value, but 

 ash, sycamore, birch, oak, alder, and larch are readily disposed 

 of when they exceed one cubic foot ; and under ordinary con- 

 ditions the cubic contents of the trees in a young plantation 

 should average from two to three feet at the age of thirty-five 

 years, before which time the second thinning should hardly 

 be necessary. The subject of thinning, from this point of view, 

 is most important. In evidence given before the Forestry 

 Committee, some years ago, it was plainly shown that one of 

 the mistakes made in estimating returns from woods, conducted 

 on Brown's system of early and frequent thinnings, was that 

 far too high a value was put on the thinnings and that they 

 were almost worthless, being under measureable size, rough, 

 and useless. In the system of thinning proposed here, and 

 practised on the Continent, the numerous thinnings conducted 

 every few years on Brown's system are embraced in one or 

 two thinnings. This gets rid of the expense of frequent and 

 useless repetitions and allows time for the trees to reach a 

 useful size, when thinning becomes really necessary. What 

 the value of the thinnings might be under the dense system of 

 culture we have had no means of knowing in this country,, but 

 judging by what we have seen in Germany of examples that 

 could be easily repeated in Britain, and by the fact that the 

 nearly four thousand trees per acre at the twentieth year are 

 reduced in number by nearly three thousand by the fortieth 

 year, in about two thinnings, we can certainly conceive of crops 

 in which the thinnings would pay well in the time specified, 

 at prices such as have long' been common. The disposal of 

 three thousand poles, however small, between the twentieth 

 and fortieth years, as shown in Schlich's table, means bulk, 

 and a transaction of considerable value, as timber sales go, and 

 takes no account of subsequent i thinnings or of the ultimate 

 crop. 



Coming to the third and subsequent thinnings, or rather 

 falls of timber, the same rules should be observed as before in 

 maintaining the overhead canopy, removing the worst trees, 

 and reserving the finest and largest By middle-age, growth 

 will have become less vigorous and the overhead canopy will 

 not be so soon restored where interrupted by the removal of 

 any trees ; but by this time the effects of judicious crowding 

 in the earlier stages will have been to a great extent secured 

 in a clean. height-growth, and if a little more room is afforded 



