Forest Life and Forest Trees: comprising winter camp-life among the loggers, and wild-wood adventure.: with Descriptions of lumbering operations on the various; rivers of Maine and New BrunswickSpringer, John S.
History
Forest Life and Forest Trees: comprising winter camp-life among the loggers, and wild-wood adventure.: with Descriptions of lumbering operations on the various; rivers of Maine and New Brunswick
Springer, John S.
Lumbering -- Maine; Maine -- Description and travel; New Brunswick -- Description and travel; Trees
The following account of the experiments made by the Dukes of
Athol, on the Highlands of Scotland, is so encouraging and deeply
interesting, that, although long, I insert it, hoping the example may
be followed in appropriate positions in this country:
"The estates of the Dukes of Athol are in the north of Scotland, in
the latitude of nearly 50° north. Between 1740 and 1750, James, duke
of Athol, planted more than twelve hundred Larch-trees in various
situations and elevations, for the purpose of trying a species of tree
then new in Scotland. In 1759 he planted seven hundred Larches over a
space of twenty-nine Scotch acres, intermixed with other kinds of
forest trees, with the view of trying the value of the Larch as a
timber tree. This plantation extended up the face of a hill from two
hundred to four hundred feet above the level of the sea. The rocky
ground of which it was composed was covered with loose and crumbling
masses of mica slate, and was not worth above £3 a year altogether.
Before he died, in 1764, he was satisfied of the superiority of the
Larch as a timber over other firs, even in trees only eighteen or
nineteen years old. His successor, John, duke of Athol, first
conceived the idea of planting Larch by itself as a forest tree, and
of planting the sides of the hills about Dunkeld. He planted three
acres with Larches alone, at an elevation of five or six hundred feet
above the level of the sea, on a soil not worth a shilling an acre. He
also planted over four hundred acres on the sides of hills before his
death, in 1774. His son, Duke John, continuing the execution of his
father's plans, had planted in 1783 279,000 trees. Observing the rapid
growth and hardy nature of the Larch, he determined to cover with it
the steep acclivities of mountains of greater altitude than any that
had yet been tried. He therefore inclosed a space of twenty-nine acres
on the rigid summit of Craig-y-barns, and planted a strip entirely
with Larches among the crevices and hollows of the rocks, where the
least soil could be found. At this elevation none of the larger kinds
of natural plants grew, so that the grounds required no previous
preparation of clearing. This plantation was formed in 1785 and 1786.
Between that year and 1791 he planted six hundred and eighty acres
with 500,000 Larches, the greater part only sprinkled over the
surface, on account of the difficulty of procuring a sufficient number
of plants. Besides a plantation of seventy acres for the purpose of
embellishment, he had, in 1799, extended his plantations of Larches
over an additional space of eight hundred acres, six hundred of which
were planted entirely, though thinly, with Larch. These took 800,000
plants.
"Observing, with satisfaction and admiration, the luxuriant growth
of the Larch in all situations, and its hardihood even in the most
exposed regions, the duke resolved on pushing entire Larch plantations
still further to the summit of the highest hills.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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