308 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
April  9,  1903. 
reach  £30  an  acre.  In  many  cases  a  good  deal  of  timber  is 
removed  for  the  owner’s  benefit  before  the  estate  is  sold, 
but  that  cannot  well  be  carried  out  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
alter  the  value  per  acre  very  much. 
Now,  how  are  these  low  figures  explained,  for  that  they 
are  miserably  low"  no  one  will  deny,  I  think.  On  one  estate, 
for  example,  w-here  all  kinds  of  timber  trees  thrive  well, 
something  like  a  thousand  acres  had  been  originally 
planted  at  the  rate  of  about  3,000  trees  to  the  acre,  or  a 
total  of  3,000,000.  On  the  thinnest  cropping  scale  hitherto 
practised  there  ought  to  be  in  such  a  case  not  less  than  200 
or  300  mature  trees  to  the  acre  at  the  final  stage,  and  four 
times  as  many  at  middle  age,  worth  a  far  greater  sum  per 
acre  than  the  figures  mentioned  ;  but  the  crop  is  not  there. 
What  has  become  of  the  trees  1  Where  has  the  value  gone 
after  all  the  expense  of  planting  and  tending  for  so  many 
years  %  An  answer  to  the  question  would  reveal  mis¬ 
management  too  bad  to  be  described.  The  trees  have  dis¬ 
appeared  through  the  ravages  of  rabbits,  overthinning 
and  general  neglect,  and  the  value  has  been  reduced 
through  the  same  causes,  and  by  planting  far  too  large  a 
proportion  of  the  most  worthless  species.  If  owners  would 
only  keep  a  correct  account  of  their  woods,  and  have  them 
valued  periodically,  such  a  state  of  things  would  not  exist. 
It  is  no  use  w-riters  attempting  to  excuse  such  things  by 
saying  that  trees  are  planted  principally  for  covert  for  game 
and  sporting  purposes.  The  extensive  plantings  of  the  past 
have  been  conducted  w'ith  no  such  motives,  otherwise  one 
w"ould  like  to  know  why  so  much  stress  has  always  been 
laid  upon  the  qualifications  of  a  forester  when  one  was 
wanted  for  an  estate,  and  why  so  much  importance  attached 
to  the  system  adopted,  and  the  kinds  of  timber  trees 
planted.  The  complicated  planting  diagrams  to  be  found 
in  forestry  books  in  most  gentlemen’s  libraries  w-ere  not 
conceived  for  the  sole  benefit  of  pheasants.  No,  woods  in 
this  country  have  all  been  laid  out  and  planted  for  timber 
crops  princi)a.jlly.  That  anyone  can  see  who  .understands 
woods,  and  thl3se  who  say  they  exist  exclusively  for  game 
do  not  know  what  they  are  talking  about.  The  crops  have 
not  been  realised,  that  is  all. 
Now,  what  should  crops  of  our  different  kinds  of  forest 
trees  be  really  worth  ?  Let  us  try  to  answer  that  question. 
To  begin  with.  Larch  stands  first,  for  it  still  grows  free 
from  clisease  in  places,  and  even  where  it  is  diseased  it  is 
as  saleable  at  the  same  price  as  sound  Larch  after  it  has 
reached  pit-prop,  or  a  larger  size.  It  seems  to  be  thought, 
on  some  estates,  that  badly  diseased  Larch  is  Avorthless  for 
any  purpose,  judging  from  the  quantities  one  sees  stand¬ 
ing  ;  but  if  the  owners  would  cut  it  down  an  eyesore  to  the 
landscape  would  be  removed,  and  a  considerable  sum  of 
money  realised.  Lately,  we  saw  many  acres  of  Larch  in 
the  last  staee  of  disease  in  the  south-west  of  England — 
about  as  sad  a  sight  in  tree  life  as  one  can  see.  As  to  the 
actual  value  of  Larch  per  acre,  mature  trees,  about  seventy 
years  of  age,  have  been  sold  in  the  Midlands  to  iron  works, 
collieries,  and  to  sawmills  for  railway  purposes,  for  from 
£150  to  £200  per  acre,  and  no  account  was  taken  of  pre¬ 
vious  thinnings,  of  which  there  was  no  record.  A  final 
cjop  of  probablv  thirty  acres,  in  one  case,  was  sold  and 
cleared  off  within  twelve  months  at  the  above  figure,  and 
there  were  not  nearly  so  many  trees  to  the  acre  as  there 
might  have  been,  the  plantation  being  an  ordinary  sample 
of  a  British  w-ood.  Not  far  from  the  same  place,  forty  acres 
of  Larch,  sixty-five  years  of  age,  growing  at  a  very  high 
elevation  on  the  Pennine  range,  was  sold  for  fully  £50  an 
acre.  One  half  of  the  forty  acres  was  sold  over  a  number 
of  years,  by  instalments,  at  a  little  higher  figure  ;  but  the 
other  half  the  writer  sold  intact  for  the  owner  for  £1,000 
net.  The  trees  were  counted,  and  there  were  about  300  to 
the  acre,  all  small,  averaging  six  to  seven  cubic  feet  only, 
but  of  a  suitable  girth  for  many  useful  purposes.  The 
situation  was  high  and  bleak,  and  the  soil  thin  and  poor, 
w-aste  land  in  fact,  worth  not  more  than  Is.  6d.  rent  for 
other  purposes.  Such  a  realisation  is  very  satisfactory. 
In  the  same  locality,  but  down  in  the  bottom  of  the 
valley,  the  Larch  of  the  same  age  is  worth  three  times  the 
above  figure,  or  more,  the  trees  being  much  bigger  though 
of  the  same  age.  Elevation  makes  a  vast  difference,  but 
the  Larch  will  grow  and  thrive  high  up  in  England,  and 
produce  a  profitable  crop  on  land  next  to  useless  for  agri¬ 
cultural  purposes.  In  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  the  dif¬ 
ference  between  the  value  of  the  Larch  crop  per  acre  at  the 
top  and  bottom  of  the  mountains  is  £80,  the  highest  ground 
being  worth  £20  per  acre  and  the  lowest  £100.  These  are 
the  figures  given  in  the  evidence  before  the  Forestry  Select 
Committee,  but  we  have  them  also  from  the  wntnesses 
themselves  on  the  spot.  One  of  the  best  authorities  on 
the  subject  is  Grigor.  The  forestry  taught  in  his  “Arbori¬ 
culture  ”  is  not  now"  favoured,  but  Grigor’s  estimates  of  the 
value  of  crops  of  Larch  may  be  relied  on,  and  the  figures 
are  quite  applicable  to  similar  situations  anywhere.  He 
planted  extensively  for  owners  on  their  estates.  One  well- 
known  example  on  the  Brahan  Castle  estate.  Boss-shire, 
he  mentions  that  had  yielded  at  least  15,000ft  of  measurable 
timber  to  the  acre,  besides  small  thinnings,  and  as  such 
Larch  has  seldom  fetched  less  than  a  shilling  per  foot,  and 
often  more,  that  quantity  woidd  mean  £770  per  acre.  The 
trees  were  about  eighty  years  of  age,  and  a  number  of 
them  were  still  standing  previous  to  1880,  and  contained 
100  cubic  feet  each.  Estimates  up  to  £200  and  £300  have 
often  been  recorded  in  Scotch  forestry  papers.  The  Brahan 
Castle  Larches  show'  considerably  over  an  annual  incre¬ 
ment  of  one  cubic  foot  per  tree  from  beginning  to  end  of 
the  tree’s  life.  The  same  writer  mentions  the  case  of  400 
acres  of  mixed  Larch  and  Scotch  Fir  which  he  planted  in 
1830,  and  valued  thirty-five  years  later,  with  the  assistance 
of  two  good  judges,  one  a  forester  and  the  other  a  timber 
merchant.  The  plantation  had  of  course  been  thinned,  and 
the  best  of  the  Larch  stood  then  from  50ft  to  upwards  of 
60ft  high,  and  contained  from  20ft  to  25ft  of  timber.  The 
best  parts  of  the  wood  were  worth  £80  per  acre,  and  alto¬ 
gether  the  value  of  the  timber  covering  500  imperial  acres 
of  poor  moorland  was  estimated  at  £31,600.  This  was  a 
mixture  of  Scotch  Fir  and  Larch,  it  must  be  remembered, 
and  worth  considerably  less  than  a  crop  of  nure  Larch. 
The  Scotch  or  Corsican  Fir  is  necessary  nowadays  to  mix 
with  the  Larch  in  case  of  the  latter  becoming  diseased. 
The  Scotch  Fir,  and  the  Corsican  Fir,  rank  next  to 
Larch  in  value  as  Fir,  and  on  the  poorest  lands  and  on  pure 
sand-banks  these  Firs  grow  just  as  fast  as  they  do  on  good 
land,  and  produce,  under  dense  culture,  at  least  from  6,000 
to  10,000  cubic  feet  to  the  acre,  worth  3d.  per  foot  at  least 
standing  in  the  wood.  There  are  some  fine  Scotch  Fir 
woods  in  both  the  north  and  south  of  England  on  waste 
lands  that  I  have  seen,  which  cannot  contain  much  less 
than  6,000ft  to  the  acre  of  not  very  old  timber,  worth  £75 
an  acre ;  and  this  is  not  under  either  the  best  culture  or 
management.  Ten  thousand  feet  ought  to  be  produced  to 
every  acre  in  a  rotation  period  of  100  years. 
The  most  casual  observer  may  notice  that  the  contents 
of  an  acre  of  timber  may  vary  greatly,  according  to  eleva¬ 
tion  and  exposure  ;  but  exnerience  justifies  me  in  stating 
that  £50  an  acre  ought  to  be  the  minimum  figure  for  a  crop 
of  Larch  under  the  most  unfavoiu’able  conditions  of  soil  and 
situation,  and  that  figure  may  be  greatly  exceeded  for 
various  kinds  of  the  most  useful  timber. — J.  Simpson. 
- - 
British  Colonies:  Canada. 
The  increasing  volume  of  emigration  towards  Canada  received 
a  fresh  impetus  on  Tuesday,  March  31,  when  a  party  of  fifteen 
hundred  emigrants,  drawn  from  London  and  the  South  of 
England,  set  sail  for  the  Dominion  ivitli  the  definite  object  of 
forming  a  co-operative  colony  in  the  plainlands  of  the  Saskatche¬ 
wan.  While  the  ultimate  success  of  so  large  a  party  with  so 
precise  an  object  must  largely  depend  on  the  character  of  the 
persons  who  compose  it  and  the  strength  of  the  organisation 
which  is  to  weld  them  into  a  homogeneous  whole  (observes  “  The 
Daily  Mail  ”)  there  can  be  no  two  opinions  as  to  the  capacity  of 
Canada  to  receive  and  maintain  them,  or  as  to  the  highly  satis¬ 
factory  prospect  w'hich  Canada,  as  compared  with  present  condi¬ 
tions  in  South  Africa,  holds  out  to  the  British  settler  w'ho  adds 
to  the  buoyancy  of  hope  a  set  of  solid  and  practical  virtues.  For 
Canada,  with  its  three  and  a  half  millions  of  square  miles  and 
less  than  five  and  a  half  millions  of  people,  has  plenty  of  room  to. 
offer,  even  though  in  the  last  twenty  years  her  urban  population 
alone  has  more  than  doubled.  In  the  western  territories,  too, 
for  which  these  latest  emigrants  are  bound,  there  are  more  than 
a  million  of  square  miles  of  good  land  awaiting  settlers,  and,  on 
the  whole,  owing  to  the  Chinook  winds  rvhich  blow  warm  from 
the  Pacific  over  a  depression  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  a  clirnate 
which  is  not  more  severe  than  that  of  several  of  the  United 
States.  The  railways  of  Canada  are  being  rapidly  developed, 
and  the  valleys  along  10,000  miles  of  navigable  rivers  will  both 
feed  and  tap  them.  Taxation  in  Canada  is  at  a  minimum  ;  life, 
though  arduous,  is  free,  and  everything  seems  to  be  on  the  side 
of  the  industrious. 
