1 Jan., 1900.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 55 
trees are grown wide enough apart to develop to their utmost extent? Let me 
give an example or two. For over 30 years [ have watched the gradual filling 
up of a precipitous narrow gully with trees, and marked the comparative 
progress of the trees on the steep sides of the gully. 
___ At first, when the ravine was planted, a section of it would have appeared 
like the letter \J with the plants (all then about the same size) on ran side. 
But gradually, as the trees grew, the acuteness of the angle of the Y grows 
less and less, owing to the trees lower down growing faster than the trees 
higher up, until now the tops of the trees are nearly level across the ravine. 
At the top edge of the cliff the trees are short, and in the bottom tall and 
cylindrical, and by far the more valuable. 
Some time ago I received a sketch of a section of a ravine planted with 
Scotch firs, near Newry, in Ireland, that would have illustrated my meaning 
well, but a typewriting company lost it—to their cost and mine, too. ‘This 
sketch showed the firs as tall as masts in the bottom of the gully, and those at 
the top, in the exposed field on each side, rough-branching specimens, unfit for 
anything but firewood, and about half the height of the others. That is height- 
growth! The Douglas fir pole at Kew is another fine example of height- 
growth. 1t is about 160 feet high, and only just a little less in girth at the top 
than at the bottom. How a timber merchant’s mouth would water over that 
pole! He could enter his saw at one end, and cut one continuous plank out of it 
55 yards long, with very few knots. [have twice measured the Douglas fir speci- 
men at Dunkeld, planted about 1845, and now containing well on for 100 cubic 
feet, and compared it with the Kew pole, much to the disadvantage of the 
former ; for whereas the first represents a perfect timber tree, the other, from 
the same point of view, is an abortion of the candle-extinguisher pattern, having 
every fault that a trunk of timber can have—viz., too much taper, and a multi- 
tude of coarse knots over its entire surface. The opinions of the saw-mill man 
and the forester—as distinguished from the tree-lover—are sadly at variance on 
such subjects. 
Mr, Simpson relates that he had to value and sell 20 acres of larch growing 
at an altitude of 1,300 feet. The ground was very poor, and consisted of a 
Series of hillocks or mounds, so artificial-looking in shape as to suggest that 
they had been raised by the hand of man. Both the heights and the hollows 
Were planted at the same time—about 70 years ago; and when he valued them 
Standing, the average dimensions of the trees were about 6 cubic feet, yet the 
trees ran from 1 foot up to 28 feet, according to the position. An average of 
the two extremes eon have given 12 feet as the general average, but what 
pulled the average down was the number of stunted short trees that grew on 
the high and exposed knolls, these seldom exceeding 1 foot or 1} feet, and a 
careful average had to be taken in every part of the wood. The winding 
narrow gullies everywhere held the best and tallest trees, some reaching a 
height of 50 feet: where they were drawn up. The total quantity of measurable 
timber estimated in the lot was 36,000 feet, or a little under 2,000 feet to the 
Acre all over, and it fell just a little over the estimate. Roughly speaking, the 
trees in the gullies would average about 9 cubic feet, and the poor ones on the 
high ground about 3 feet, a difference due not to soil, but to the comparative 
Shelter afforded in the different positions and the pulling-up process—the 
height growth. The wood had never been thinned, and the tall trees varied 
steatly in girth. All were about the same height; but while some did not 
(uarter-girth more than 3 inches in the middle, others would girth double that 
ne more, showing that the height-growth was not due to shelter alone, but to 
eir being drawn up in the struggle to reach the light. 
*i The illustrations accompanying this article are from photographs taken by 
fi a Mobsby, of the Agricultural Department, at Mount Coot-tha. They show 
nee contrast between trees (mainly spotted gum) growing in the ravines 
an those growing on the ridges. The tall slender trees shown in Plate I. growing 
on the: side of the ravine are 50 feet high, and only measure 10 inches in 
‘ameter 6 feet from the ground. The large spotted gum on Plate II. growing 
