THE CULTIVATION OF FOREST TREES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 188, 14 September 1871, Page 6

THE CULTIVATION OF FOREST TREES.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, — As possessing considerable interest to the residents in these treeless wastes, and mure particularly to people about to embark in the cultivation of trees, the following extract, from a review of a work (" The Eorester ") by James Browu, LL.D., may not be unworthy a corner in your valuable columns: —

On three estates that I have had to deal with in the north of Scotland, where the woods are chiefly larch and Scots pine, and where regular accounts of the sales of the produce had beeu kept fov a period of nearly forty yeaia previous to my visiting them, T found that, taking tie older class of the pine woods, thoy had yielded, on the average, about 13a per acre per annum for thinnings during the forty years accmnts had been kept of sales from them ; and that where clearings had been made of these, the matured crops had realised, on an average, about £70 per" acre, after the removal of all the thinnings that had from time to time been taken from them.

The larch portions of the crops on these estates realised about one-half more than the pine portions — that is, the average annual value realised from the thinnings of the larch was, for the fortyyears referred to, 20s per acre ; and where clearings have beeu made of this kind, the matured crop had yielded £106 per acre on the average. The annual rent of the land, at an average, upon which those plantations grew, was reckoned at 4s 6d per acre ; and the crops, when matured, had occupied the land for a period of about seventy years. Now, had it been occupied by tenants for the purpose of [ grazing, the proprietors would have received only £15 15s for an acve during the period of seventy years ; but, being occupied by trees, we see that they -received, by the end of the period of seventy years, when the crops were cleared, no less than 27s (3d for each year of the period in respect to each acre of that occupied by the pine crops, and about 41s 6d for each year in respect to each acre occupied by the larch. If the foregoing figures, describing "yield " ami •' profit," are trebled, in order to arrive at some conclusion as to the profitable nature of such an undertaking as applied to this province, T think they will then be under the mark.—- 1 am, &c, M. Eoxbourgh, 2nd September.