236 WILL IT PAY TO PLANT TIMBER IN AMERICA ? [Aug. 



and New Zealand. In the latter country it is, I believe, commonly 

 called birch. In Victoria it is found in the ranges near Dandenong. 

 Baron von Mueller recorded it on Wilson's Promontory in 1853. 

 It constitutes extensive forests on Mount Baw Baw, near the sources 

 of the Yarra, Goulburn, Thomson, and Latrobe, as ascertained by the 

 Baron when he ascended that mountain in 1860. This Australian 

 fagus, first referred to by Allan Cunningham in Kiwjs Voyages 

 (1827), was proclaimed a distinct species by Sir William Hooker, in 

 1840, as Fiujus Cunningliami. Its excellent timber is known in the 

 market as " Tasmanian Myrtle." 



WILL IT FAY TO PLANT TIMBER IN AMEPJGA ? 



' 1Vr^'" ^^^^ Thomas Meehan, in the June number of the Gardeners 

 X 1 Montlihj, commenting on a report of the Ontario College, in 

 which the income from a forestry plantation is estimated at 12 

 dols. per acre per year, for fifty years. Dr. Meehan says : — " Now 

 this is no great showing. If one has a tract of land for fifty years, 

 and has it in condition for agricultural uses, as this is required to 

 be before the planting of the forest, the annual renting of the land 

 would probably be much more than 12 dols. per acre. Certainly, 

 we may set it down that the average rental of the land for that 

 period would be that. There would be this income without any 

 crop at all, the tenant making his living. Twenty-five dols. per 

 year, at least, should be the average product of land of this kind. 

 Unless some better showing than this can be made for forest plant- 

 ing, we fear no new forests would be put out." 



But according to the Philadclplda Press, there is abundant land 

 in the Atlantic States fit only for forestry ; while in Pennsylvania 

 alone, at the last census, the land in farms, amounting to a trifle 

 more than two-thirds of the entire State, was worth less than 50 

 dols. per acre, so that a rent of 12 dols. per acre would be about 

 one-quarter of the value of the land. " No doubt there is much land 

 in the neighbourhood of cities, or with exceptional advantages for 

 special purposes, which will rent for more than 12 dols. But as an 

 average it is preposterously high. Take the country through and 

 the farm land is worth less than 20 dols. per acre, and that too 

 •when much less than one-third of the nation's area is counted as 

 occupied for agricultural purposes. If the 4,000,000 farms in the 

 United States, which average 134 acres each, could be rented at the 

 rate of 1600 dols. apiece, a large proportion of their owners would 

 abandon agriculture at once and spend the summer in Europe." 



