86 ON THINNING PLANTATIONS. 
the wood been thinned early and judiciously, and other 500 
or 600 trees been removed per acre, they no doubt would 
have brought £10 per acre free, even if the thinning had been 
begun early, when the wood was only fit for sheep-flakes, and 
of little value. By this means only about 500 trees per acre 
would have now remained, which would no doubt have been 
worth on an average 4s. or 5s. each; thus the plantation could 
not have failed to be worth double its present value. This, 
however, does’ not represent half the loss of the mismanage- 
ment. The 500 trees would have been in vigour and ready 
for another thinning—only in the morning of their life, pos- 
sessed of that justness of proportion indispensable to profit- 
able growth, or the speedy formation of cubical contents. In 
a soil so congenial, trees manifesting such vigour after the age 
of thirty-two years require again early and repeated thinnings, 
and the revenue per acre up to the age of sixty might be 
expected to be not less than £150, leaving in each acre, at 
that age, about 150 trees, worth on an average £2 each, or 
£300 per acre. After this period the mode of procedure 
should of course depend on the capability of the soil as shown 
by the vigour of the trees. If they still continued to increase 
vigorously in size, they should have ample space for the de- 
velopment of their foliage, which would likely give occasion 
for another thinning. About this time, a judicious mode of 
procedure would be to insert into all the greater vacancies, 
in well-prepared pits, plants for a succession, such as silver 
fir, oak, deodar, Douglas fir, Wellingtonia, or such as stand in 
need of shade and shelter in the first stage of their growth. 
But I must now return to the plantation of thirty-two years 
old as it really stands, and to the twenty acres of larch in 
particular; for although in many parts of the wood the trees 
stand too close, and are likely to get too tall for their girth, 
they have in general been pretty well thinned, particularly 
near the outsides. Where the soil is poor and exposed, the 
trees are in consequence less vigorous, ruin has not so 
speedily overtaken them, and by immediate thinning their 
health may yet be preserved. Not so, however, with the 
