1917] on Scientific Forestry for the United Kingdom 73 



the answer in afforestation. A scheme such as I have indicated 

 ■would not absorlj by any means the whole of the rough pasture, and 

 probaljly not even more than a quarter of what is plan table, but the 

 method of carrying- it out would require most careful thought. The 

 knowledge of forestry in this country resides partly in experts 

 employed by the Government and teaching centres and in the officers 

 attached to the Crown Woods ; but to a large extent, and perhaps in 

 its most practical form, it resides in the owners of private estates and 

 their foresters, who are responsible for 07 per cent, of the woods in 

 this country. We have seen that the great risk attending privately 

 owned forests is the temptation to sacrifice the future to the present, 

 to secure an immediate gain at the expense of great eventual loss. 

 The State does not usually excel in economy, but the experience of 

 other countries shows that it can, on the whole, conduct forests better 

 than private individuals. Thus in France and Germany the produc- 

 tion is found to be greater in the State forests than in private woods, 

 while the communal woods, managed by the State for the villagers 

 with many concessions to their wishes, stand halfway between. The 

 situation seems to point to a double advance on parallel lines — first, 

 the acquisition and planting of land by the State, and, second, the 

 encouragement of planting by private individuals, in return for some 

 guarantee that their woods will be properly maintained. What does 

 encouragement mean ? It means skilled advice in the making of 

 working plans and schools where working foresters can be trained. 

 It also means that in some form or other the State will have, for 

 some years at least, to make up the difference between loss and 

 reasonable profit on private plantations. It is impossible now to 

 calculate how far plantations made after the war will pay. The 

 conditions do not appear favourable. Prices, bank rate and wages 

 are the chief factors, and all are uncertain. One thing only is certain 

 — that the nation must have the woods necessary for national safety 

 even if it has to pay for them. 



Quite apart from the direct profit or loss, the indirect gain to 

 the nation by afforestation will beyond doubt be very great. It is 

 inevitable that private individuals should mainly be guided by the 

 question of profit or loss, but this is the only country in which the 

 State has regarded afforestation wholly or even mainly from this 

 point of view. In other countries, not because they are less business- 

 like, but because they are more businesslike, the motive for afforesta- 

 tion has been found, not in the hope of direct profit, but in the 

 increased productiveness of the land under forest and the increased 

 population it is able to support. Some people find it difficult to 

 keep these questions distinct, but they really are so. Whether a 

 wood is profitable or the reverse to a planter there is no shadow of 

 doubt that it enriches the nation. Provided it grows reasonably 

 well, each acre will produce annually a ton of timber : every 100 acres 

 will support a family ; for every £100 of timber sold standing an 



