Thinnings of Plantations. 
.5(>o 
to plant only such trees as there is reason to suppose will obtain a ready 
demand in any particular place. I have frequently observed plantations 
ultimately intended to be Oak-woods, tiiickened up with Scotch Fir, in 
situations which did not seem to require the shelter of that tree, and 
which evidently afforded no profitable means of consuming it, but where 
an equal number of Ash, Hazel, Tree Sallows, &c. would have found a 
ready market. The New F'orest, in Hampshire, affords an example on 
an extensive scale, of the indiscriminate use of the Scotch Fir, and 
equally useless Pinaster, where neither is required, at least to the 
extent made use of. And the woods of Scone Palace, near Penh, where 
Hazel has been used as a nurse, afford an instance of the proper adapta¬ 
tion of underwood to the demand, which I have attempted to recommend. 
The former for half a century or more after their formation, are a con¬ 
tinued expense. The latter have not only reimbursed all expenses 
attendant on their cultivation, but have yielded a fair rent for the land, 
and the very valuable crop of Oak timber is clear profit. 
Where fuel is scarce, the obvious mode of disposing of the refuse of 
plantations, as was observed when adverting to the thinnings of Fir 
plantations, is to convert it into cord-w ood and faggots; saplings of Oak, 
Ash, and Hazel, will in general be in request for hoops, crates, hurdles 
for fences,* walking-sticks, &c. and the less valuable parts for staking- 
rice, (a kind of fence,) keshing, (a basis on w hich to form a road over 
bog, or other soft ground) and wattling for houses intended to be covered 
with thatch, &:c.; Alder, Poplar, and Willow, are in demand in situations 
contiguous to the Herring fisheries, for the purpose of making barrels ; 
and many extensive tracts of low marshy ground might, at an incon¬ 
siderable expense, be sufficiently drained to fit it for rearing these trees, 
and its value thereby be enhanced many hundred-fold.-j* But where 
the situation is so remote that the refuse of plantations cannot be profit¬ 
ably applied to any of the purposes above mentioned, still there is one 
mode of disposing of it, of almost universal application,—I allude to the 
conversion of it into -pyroligneous acid and charcoal, both of which are 
produced by the same operation, and by which the produce of many 
thousand acres may be converted into substances that will amply com¬ 
pensate for transporting them to a market, from any part of the United 
Kingdom. 
A distillery of pyroligneous acid was established some time since in 
this city, by which a market has been opened for an immense quantity 
of refuse timber, which, but for the mode of consuming it, w ould have 
* The best fence of this kinH was that which you, Mr. Conductor, had the kindness to point 
out to me, at Chatsworth j a figure and description of the method of forming which, 1 may 
venture to say, would be very acceptable to many of your readers. 
+ Mr. Monteath, in recommending this method of converting waste land to a profitable use, 
uniformly uses the term Elder, for Alder. The absurdity of the error will prevent its doing 
any harm ; and it were well if the same could be said of very many of his observations on the 
subject of Foresting. 
VoL.I, No. 11. 
3r 
