CHAPTER XI. 
teal Ges 
PROFIT OF TIMBER CULTURE. 
In estimating the profits of timber culture in the 
United States, all calculations must of necessity be 
prospective, and without the pretence of exactness, 
since no one can foresee what may be the value of 
timber when the increasing demand, and the con- 
sequent rapid destruction of the forests, shall have 
produced the scarcity which is inevitable. It is the 
general opinion of those who have considered the 
subject, that lands in the rural districts planted with 
valuable timber will, in twenty-five years from the 
present time, be of greater value than any other. 
Some of the best kinds of timber thrive upon very 
poor soils, or on rocky and broken lands, so that 
tracts almost worthless for any other purpose may, 
by covering them with trees, be rendered the most 
valuable part of an estate. The Larch plantations 
of the Duke of Athol, in Scotland, were made upon 
land worth from ninepence to one shilling per acre. 
At thirty years from planting, the trees were thinned 
to four hundred per acre, which was considered the 
