With regard to the probable profit arising from a crop of larch planted pure, and realised at 30 to 50 years as compared with a crop mixed with hardwood and realised at 80 to 100 years, I have, with the assistance of Sir Hugh Beevor and Dr. Schlich, made several calculations, but it depends so much on local conditions, on the price realised for thinnings, and on other circumstances which cannot be foreseen, that it seems impossible to estimate it with any certainty.
I have, however, arrived at the conclusion that the short rotation is, as a general rule, the more profitable, especially where a sporting rent varying from 2s. 6d. to 5s. per acre can be realised from pure larch plantations after the age of 15 to 20 years, when rabbits can be admitted freely without risk of serious damage, or where, as in many parts of Scotland, larch plantations are thrown open to sheep grazing.
What is undoubtedly the best system of forestry is not always the most profitable to the landowner, and every one must decide from his own experience which system will suit his own circumstances best.
When mixed with Spruce or Scots or Corsican pine, as is often done, the larch on suitable soil will usually far exceed the other conifers in value at the same age; and I see no advantage, but rather a loss in such a mixture.
In woods which have been treated as coppice-with-standards the larch is a more profitable tree than beech or oak, and may be introduced to the number of thirty to forty per acre immediately after each cutting of the coppice. If left till sixty to eighty years old there would thus be eventually about 100 trees per acre, which will pay much better in these times than the underwood; for if only ten trees, worth say 30s. each, be taken at each rotation, the value will amount to £15 per acre, and there are not many districts in England where underwood is now worth half as much. In Earl Bathurst's extensive woodlands near Cirencester this system has been adopted for many years with great success; but if rabbits exist it is necessary to protect each tree by a wire cage until it is old enough to be safe from their attacks, which it is in this district after twenty to thirty years of age.
The produce per acre of larch in plantations on really good land has in many instances been surprising, and so profitable to the owner that some writers have greatly exaggerated the average returns that may be expected. Prof. Charles E. Curtis,[1] assuming that 300 trees per acre may be grown to maturity, which I greatly doubt, states as a reasonable possibility of production for the larch, no less than 10,000 to 12,000 feet per acre, and says that it will be found possible to bring 1000 to 1200 poles per acre to a useful and profitable size in thirty to forty years. I have
- ↑ Journ. Roy. Agr. Soc. lxiv. 36 (1903).
ago these larches were deteriorating seriously, and were subsequently underplanted with beech, as foresters say, i.e. beech plants were introduced under the shade of the larches. The recovery of the latter is remarkable, and dates from the period when the underplanting was made. The explanation is based on the observation that the fallen beech-leaves keep the soil covered, and protect it from being warmed too early in the spring by the heat of the sun's rays. This delays the spring growth of the larches; their cambium is not awakened into renewed activity until three weeks or a month later than was previously the case, and hence they are not severely tried by the spring frosts, and the cambium is vigorously and continuously active from the first. But this is not all. The timber is much improved; the annual rings contain a smaller proportion of soft, light spring wood, and more of the desirable summer and autumn wood consisting of closely-packed, thick-walled elements. The explanation of this is that the spring growth is delayed until the weather and soil are warmer, and the young leaves in full activity; whence the cambium is better nourished from the first, and forms better tracheides throughout its whole active period."
