Our forests and woodlands . calities to whichit is indigenous. And very much the same mustalso be said about the spruce in Britain. Exceptwhen grown under very favourable conditions,silver fir timber—known as White Pine fromthe paucity of resin ducts—ranks rather belowthat of spruce in general quality; and both ofthese are inferior to the heartwood of larch andScots pine. The wood of the Douglas Fir orRed Pine of Oregon (P. Douglasii) produced inScotland is now known to rank in quality betweenthat of Scots pine and larch, and as its productionof wood exceeds in annual average that of anyother
Our forests and woodlands . calities to whichit is indigenous. And very much the same mustalso be said about the spruce in Britain. Exceptwhen grown under very favourable conditions,silver fir timber—known as White Pine fromthe paucity of resin ducts—ranks rather belowthat of spruce in general quality; and both ofthese are inferior to the heartwood of larch andScots pine. The wood of the Douglas Fir orRed Pine of Oregon (P. Douglasii) produced inScotland is now known to rank in quality betweenthat of Scots pine and larch, and as its productionof wood exceeds in annual average that of anyother conifer grown in Britain, this very valuabletree seems to deserve special consideration and ex-perimental cultivation in woods worked for profit—and especially the long-foliaged, dark-greenor Pacific variety from the sea-coast provinces. The rate of growth of Douglas fir is indeedremarkable. In 1887 evidence was given beforethe Parliamentary Committee on Forestry that onthe Scone estate, in Perthshire, a plantation of. AMONG THE PINES AND FIRS 211 eight acres in extent, made in 1860 with four-year-old plants set at 12x12 feet and filled up withlarch at 6 X 6 feet, gave a thinning of 620 polesof large size in the spring of 1887 as the Douglasfir outgrew the larch. These thinnings of 1887were sold for ;C34, and the only expenditure in-curred between 1887 and 1900 was £1^ for prun-ing which might have been unnecessary but for thefact that the plantation was originally made atrather a wide distance. In 1900 this fine cropconsisted of 1535 dominant trees, and 95 domi-nated stems about to be removed during thenext few years. The average height of the domi-nant trees was then 75 feet, and the largest stemsgirthed 7 feet at 5 feet above the ground,though of course there was considerable diversityin the size of the trees. As the crop then stoodon the ground the dominant trees were estimatedto contain 25 cubic feet each, or 38,375 cubic feetworth 9d. a foot (;£i439, is. 3d.), and
Size: 1482px × 1685px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectforestsandforestry
