14 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



purposes there ; but whether it is that the timber has not been 

 properly grown, or will not pay for delivery, or the two causes 

 put together, I do not know, but it is a fact that the mining 

 branch of the timber trade in Scotland, which is enormous, is 

 almost wholly in the hands of the Norwegians. 



A noticeable difference between Scotch and English woods is 

 the predominance of Conifers in the former and broad-leaved 

 trees in the latter. Yet Ash, Sycamore, Elm, Beech, and other 

 broad-leaved trees do well in Scotland, and why so many com- 

 paratively worthless Firs have been planted by enterprising Scotch 

 planters is a puzzle. Some of the tallest and finest Ash-trees I 

 have ever seen grow at Dunkeld, and many fine examples are to 

 be found elsewhere. Planting the wrong species, and planting 

 good land when worse would have answered the purpose, has, in 

 my opinion, been one of the worst faults of Scotch forestry. I 

 have been assured by a Scotch nobleman, well known as a great 

 planter, that he has found this out in his own case. English 

 woods yield by far the best returns to their owners, because 

 broad-leaved species have been mostly planted, and Oak timber 

 still holds the field for quantity and value, as it always has done. 

 It is a great mistake to. suppose that because Oak is now less 

 used for ships that therefore the demand has fallen off, or is 

 ever likely to do so ; it has simply been transferred to the waggon- 

 builder, and the quantity used for such purposes alone threatens 

 to exterminate all the large Oaks in England in a very short time. 

 There probably never was such a demand for Oak as there is at 

 the present time, and the sales advertised week by week show 

 that as much, if not more, Oak is offered than all the other kinds 

 put together. It, however, takes a long time to realise a crap of 

 Oak. We have disposed of from the Wortley estate as much as 

 20,000 cubic feet of Oak in two years to one coal and iron com- 

 pany, who converted all the largest trees into waggons as fast as 

 they left the wood, and they bought about as much from our 

 neighbours at the same time. There is no time for seasoning 

 nowadays, and when the waggons shrink they are tightened by 

 means of screws. Some railway companies* own over 100,000 

 goods waggons alone, to provide the principal timbers for which 



* At the last half -yearly meeting of the Midland Railway Company the 

 chairman stated that the company owned 78,558 goods waggons and 

 27,682 coal trucks, not to mention carriages. 



