56 



GROWING GOLD. 



It, however, requires extensive practical 

 knowledge to secure a crop of oaks in mixed 

 plantations ; it is not only the most expensive 

 method, but the slowest, however skilfully 

 the trees may be pruned and thinned ; 

 therefore it is the least profitable. 



There are estates Avhich many people who 

 are unacquainted with the subject believe to 

 be well stored with timber, but in reality the 

 American term " lumbered," is the only one 

 that can be justly applied to them. One in a 

 maritime county for instance, the property 

 of a nobleman : there are large trees of all 

 kinds ; oak, ash, larch, cedar, spruce, Scotch, 

 Weymouth and other pines, beech, &c. It 

 appears from an article in a respectable 

 periodical publication, that these trees are 

 now nearly, if not quite, a century old, there- 

 fore, if they had all been of a marketable 

 quality, they would now have been a vast 

 pecuniary resource to the noble owner; *'but 

 oak is the only saleable produce of the estate 

 in large quantities ; the beech is sold for fire 



