AFFORESTATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 6iz 



regardless of suitability of locality. Such plantations can no 

 more be said to come within the sphere of economic forestry 

 than can areas managed chiefly for sport. Experiments with 

 exotic species are only justifiable on a strictly experimental 

 scale where, after careful examination, conditions similar to those 

 of their natural habitat are found to exist, and where the exotic 

 species more fully meets a requirement than indigenous trees. 

 Obvious as this may seem, how frequently is the failure of 

 a plantation ascribable to want of its appreciation, how many 

 poor oak forests or diseased larch crops are now striking proofs 

 of its disregard, and how many more plantations of Japanese 

 larch and other exotics may only swell the number? Similar 

 experience is not wanting in other countries where more 

 advanced forestry is practised, but it is particularly striking 

 in the United Kingdom, where much more intense management 

 is necessary before the best developments of indigenous species 

 are attained. 



These fundamental causes of deterioration in the condition 

 of the forests and in the quality of their produce have had 

 the further consequence of irregular yield and poor financial 

 returns. Thus it is that traders have looked to other sources 

 for their supplies and the forest-owners have found in the 

 amenities of forestry the only incentive for extending, or 

 justification for preserving, their forests. The dependence on 

 imported timber has grown further with want of organisation 

 of the home timber market and the exclusion of home-grown 

 timber from concessions granted by railways to the regular 

 traffic of imported timber; while the attitude of the owner has 

 been strengthened by unfair taxation based on a fallacious 

 discrimination between the factors of production and produce. 



In these circumstances it is most imperative not only that 

 instruction in theoretical forestry should be provided, but that 

 a more general appreciation of the possibilities should be 

 cultivated by application of its principles to existing forests. 



Some progress has been made in the matter of forest educa- 

 tion, as has been shown, and a number of forests, both private 

 and State property, have been put under regular working 

 plans. Unfortunately, however, these forests are not always 

 very accessible, or their condition was such when taken in 

 hand that the effects of proper treatment are not yet so 

 striking as is necessary to carry conviction. Consequently a 



