412 FAST -GROWN TIMBEE 



One of the most important objects to be kept in view in 

 timber management, whatever mode of pruning is adopted, is 

 to cause timber to be formed rapidly. This is little known, 

 and indeed is contrary to the opinion of many woodmen; 

 nevertheless it is susceptible of rigorous demonstration. 



Most people believe that the slowest-grown timber is the 

 best ; we continually hear it said that wood cannot be good 

 because it has been grown fast, and we find writers on foresting 

 following in the same line of assertion. In one place we observe 

 the following passage : — " It is well known that the common Oak 

 in Italy, where it grows faster than in this country, is compara- 

 tively of short duration ; aiid that the Oak which grows on the 

 mountains of the Highlands of Scotland is much harder and closer 

 than any produced in England, though on these mountains it 

 seldom attains one-tenth part of the size of English trees." It 

 would be diflficult to collect in the same space more fallacies 

 than are contained in this short paragraph. In the first place 

 Oaks do not grow faster in Italy than in England ; the reverse 

 appears to be the truth, as will be seen by reference to a 

 succeeding table, where the greatest rate of growth in Italian 

 Oak is shown to be only 3'72 lOths per annum, some of it not 

 more than 0"76 of a tenth, while in English Oak the growth is 

 in one case as much as an inch a year. Secondly, if it were 

 true that Italian Oak grows faster than English Oak, it would 

 not prove that fast-grown Oak is bad ; because some Italian, 

 or at least Sardinian, Oak is of excellent quality, and because, 

 moreover, we neither know what is meant by the wojds " com- 

 mon Oak," nor are we informed under what circumstances of 

 soil, &c., that which is said to be bad may have been produced. 

 A great deal of Italian Oak is Q. pubescens, and of this, 

 whether fast-grown or slow-grown, the quality is always bad. 

 As to Highland Oak ; in the absence of positive evidence it is 

 permitted to doubt the statement made respecting it, especially 

 when we call to mind the Oak forests formerly covering at least 

 a part of Inverness-shire — the size of which, as reported by 

 Dr. Walker and Sir T. D. Lauder, indicated anything rather 

 than slow growth. 



The author from whom the foregoing paragraph is quoted, 



