A plantation of young oak will be 50 years old, but a plantation of larch or spruce may not be more than 15 years old.
It is now almost impossible to persuade the chipboard factories to take larch thinnings; they want nothing but spruce.
Local schools in areas like this could plant a row of deciduous trees, as opposed to the larch and conifers that we see.
At one stage it was suggested that they might be asked to plant maple rather than larch.
Some think that larch is planted on land suitable for spruce; others think that spruce should be planted where fir ought to grow.
There is nothing like larch for that purpose, and the only chance of getting it is to grow it oneself rather than hard wood.
Suddenly a large number of people spent big sums of money in planting larch plantations.
The quality of the wood varies, hardwoods such as ash, oak and beech, making better fuel than softwoods such as larch and fir.
