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Art. LVI.–-On the Importance of Forestry.
[Read before the Southland Institute, 20th September, 1881.]
I Have been since my boyhood a lover of trees in all stages of growth as forests and as single trees. When attending school in the year that Waterloo was fought, I had to pass through two miles of a beautiful plantation, at the end of which was a large barn, where the then Earl of Breadalbane had a number of men threshing larch and fir cones with flails, and on my enquiring why they were threshing the sticks, I was shown a handful of the seed and informed that these would grow into large trees. Fortunately the head gardener's son was my class-fellow, consequently I had the privilege of following the seed to the nursery, and in due time the seedlings to the hillsides and barren moors, where I had the further privilege of being permitted to plant some; and now there are thousands of acres of magnificent forests clothing the previously barren land with beauty and wealth. Land then not worth a shilling an acre is now worth from two to three hundred pounds.
The Scotch fir is planted amongst the larch, oak, elm, etc., on account of the shelter afforded to the latter owing to its bushy form, and it is frequently planted in belts of a chain or two wide on the weather side of young plantations, for the same reason.
The Earl of Wemyss and March about fifty years ago planted extensively in the upper parts of Peebleshire and around Nidpath Castle, and along the Tweed, beautifying the country and greatly increasing the value of his property.
There is a stretch of country about half way between Edinburgh and Peebles known as the “King's Edge,” and when I first saw it I could not imagine anything more desolate and cold-looking. It consisted chiefly of a large extent of cold, wet, inert peat-bog, lying on a bed of impervious concrete. So hopelessly barren was the surface that it would not even grow a windlestraw. The proprietor cut it into strips and squares by open ditching, breaking the concrete bottom, and planted belts of Scotch fir and other trees as breakwinds across the prevailing winds. When I saw the locality again in 1850, the plantations were thriving beautifully, and now it is converted into fine fertile fields.
The climate was completely changed by the draining and planting. I have seen the management of a very extensive natural forest in Argyleshire, consisting chiefly of oak, ash and birch, skirting the base of Ben Cruachan and bordering the shores of Loch Awe. This forest consists of many thousands of acres, reproducing itself by stooling, as it is technically
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termed, in other words a young crop growing out of the stumps of the trees recently cut down. This territory was leased for ninety-nine years by a company of Liverpool gentlemen and dealt with as follows:—
It was subdivided into about twenty sections and one was cut down every year in spring and summer, when the sap was up, and barked chiefly by women and children; the bark being taken to Liverpool and the timber converted into charcoal for smelting iron ore–-which was brought from Ulverston to Bunawe by the company's schooners–-there converted into charcoal bar-iron and taken back to Liverpool as ballast, the vessels being filled up with the bark and wool of the district.
The iron produced at this small furnace brought the highest price in the British market, being sold for from £10 to £15 per ton, and was utilized for what is known as cold-drawn wire.
Each subdivision when cut was protected by rough fencing to prevent cattle from eating the young shoots and the finest oak tree in the division was left as a standard at each periodical cutting. The result of this forestry management was that three or four successive generations made fortunes, and the forests, when I left Scotland in 1860, were at least as flourishing as at the beginning of the lease. The lessees never planted a tree, but merely conserved and utilized what they found on the ground.
The forests here are not deciduous, and, when cut down, the stumps gradually die out; at the same time they reproduce themselves from the fallen berries, but are very slow of growth.
I counted 500 rings on the planed stump of a black-pine tree in Seaward Bush, the diameter of which was only about three feet, whereas a healthy larch would exceed that in about a tenth of the time, and the timber be of more value for every purpose, from the construction of a wheel-barrow to that of a ship.
Larch is also very durable in or out of the water. Piles of only thirty years' growth were used in extending one of the Oban jetties in Argyleshire, and after being twenty-five years in use were as sound as when driven, and not touched by a Teredo.
Larch and fir are used for coal-pit props and railway-sleepers throughout Great Britain.
In the course of a few years all the railway-sleepers in New Zealand will have to be replaced, which will pretty well exhaust the available timber suitable for the purpose, hence the desirability of planting trees of quicker growth than the native ones. It is said that larch and fir will not thrive here, as they happened to fail with some run-holders in Otago. It would be surprising if they did thrive, under the circumstances; having been taken from a cosy nursery and planted into holes of solid clay, where
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the poor plants were being alternately drowned in wet weather, and in dry scorched for want of moisture. Such soils should be cut by a sub-soil plough to the depth of 18 inches or 2 feet, drawing the furrow slightly down hill, letting the surplus water away, while the pulverized and stirred clay would retain sufficient moisture. It would be an additional advantage to turn over a furrow of the top vegetable mould with the common plough, the sub-soil one following in the same furrow; by this means the young plants would have the benefit of the old surface soil to start them.
In an earthy kindly soil all that is necessary is to make a slit with the planting spade–-pushing the slit a little open–-when your boy, with his basket of seedlings, drops one in the slit, and puts his foot on the sod closing it.
Planting here should follow the sawmillers and this cannot be done too soon. The remark is frequently made “cut down the forests, there will be plenty of timber to last our time. Convert the forest lands into agricultural holdings and cover the country with men, women and children.”
Those who make such remarks are evidently not aware of the fact that in many parts of Europe and elsewhere the cutting down of the forests resulted in converting countries formerly fertile and well peopled into absolute deserts, necessitating the removal of man and beast to look for food elsewhere. This ought to be a warning to the people of this grand country to conserve their native forests ere it be too late.
Man is cradled in timber, housed in timber, and coffined in timber, he therefore ought to take care of his cradle, his cottage, and coffin, while he can.
I intended to have produced historical proofs of the evil effects of the denudation of forest lands, I will however do so, if well, on a future occasion.