AFFORESTATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 621 



acres by the Committee of 1908 may be taken as a minimum. 

 This estimate was based on the minimum area of an economic 

 forest as distinguished from a forest for purely domestic purposes, 

 viz. 50 acres. Accordingly all holdings of under 100 acres 

 were left out of account. A further exclusion of all land under 

 crops and rotation was made, when it was assumed that 80 per 

 cent, of the 3,315,836 acres of permanent pasture were necessary 

 for agriculture, and that only 10 percent, of the mountain grazed 

 land were suited for economic afforestation. Thus Ireland, too, 

 provides considerable scope for forestry so far as land, the natural 

 factor of production, is concerned. In the case of both estimates 

 the enhanced value of the land, if employed for the production 

 of timber instead of for its present purpose, has been regarded 

 as R sine qua non ; and that a reasonable and business-like scheme 

 of afforestation is not a gamble in futures is clear when it is 

 borne in mind that the rental of the land contemplated rarely 

 exceeds 25. 6d.^ and frequently is less than 15. per acre per 

 annum. 



The bulk of this land is private property and it will be 

 necessary later to consider how the difficulties that hinder 

 afforestation by private agency can be remedied, or whether 

 private initiative should be relied upon. One contention, 

 however, may suitably be mentioned here, and that is that 

 afforestation would dislocate the present means of utilising 

 much other land ; for instance, the loss of wintering for sheep 

 would affect the value of the pastures to which it belonged. 

 Undoubtedly this might be so if all afforestable land were 

 planted forthwith ; but presumably the private owner, for his 

 own sake, would take such matters into account and no Govern- 

 ment is likely to embark on the planting of any particular area 

 without weighing the direct as well as the indirect effects of so 

 doing ; such consideration is hardly one which could be over- 

 looked. Moreover, even the low estimate of 6,000,000 acres 

 available admits of reduction and even then is not insignificant ; 

 and it must not be forgotten that the protection afforded by 

 forest will in not a few cases increase the utility of adjoining 

 land both for cattle and crops. 



Finally, before leaving the subject of land, it is well to make 

 a comparison of the proportion of land under forest and the 

 area of forest per head of population in each of the European 

 countries : 



