COMMEECIAL FOKESTET IN BllITAIN 261 



printed on inferior paper and somewhat roughly bound. As to the 

 matter of this latest essay by Mr. Stebbing we have no fault to find. 

 It strikes us as being- a remarkabl^^ sane, temperate, and opportune 

 statement. The writer first states briefly the direct and indirect 

 utility of forests to a nation — how new industries demanding wood, 

 such as paper-pulp and aeroplanes, have arisen, so that, in spite of all 

 substitutes, wood is at least as indispensable as ever ; and how forests 

 tend to regulate the water-supply, arrest shifting sand, and so preserve 

 the agricultural value of land. He, then, in 63 pages traces the his- 

 tory of Bi-itish Forestry from Koman times to 1914, sketching in a 

 most interesting summarj^ the conversion of primeval forest into 

 agricultural land, the demand for oak for the Nav}^ Evelyn's stimulus 

 to planting and the cessation of this demand with the coming in of 

 teak and steel, and the cheap import of the soft woods from the 

 forests of the Continent and of North America. 



The nadir of British Forestry Avas reached between 1866, when 

 the duties on imported timber were removed, and 1885, when the 

 first Parliamentar}' Committee on Forestry was appointed. At that 

 period the owners of woodlands " neither knew, nor pretended to know, 

 an}i:hing about forestry" — "the estate agent was usually equally 

 ignorant " ; the woods " were chiefly regarded from their usefulness 

 in affording sport or amenity " : British-grown pit- wood was so badly 

 grown that colliery-owners preferred imported material. Government 

 specifications commonly stipulated for foreign wood, and timber- 

 merchants learnt that they could not obtain any continuous supply of 

 home-grown wood. Mr. Stebbing then narrates with a surprising 

 patience and absence of bitterness the history of seven successive 

 Committees and Commissions, Avhich " resolves itself, if we omit 

 Ireland, into some small encouragement of education, but a total 

 absence of all planting-up of the waste lands of the country." It 

 may fairly be said, moreover, that, until the difficulty of obtaining 

 matches, fire-wood, and paper forced it on public attention, little or no 

 general interest in the matter was evinced. 



The second half of the book, dealing with our immediate timber- 

 requirements after the devastation caused by the War and our 

 possible future resources, is, of course, of a more immediate practical 

 interest. A concise summary is given of the available timber- 

 supplies in various countries, with the conclusion, now familiar to us 

 from the author's previous publications, that we must look mainly to 

 Russia. In this, perhaps, he somewhat overlooks the inevitable 

 enhancement of the price of timber that will render possible the 

 exj)loitation of the less accessible British Columbian supply as 

 readily, perhaps, as that of any from Siberia. Home afforesta- 

 tion, it is cogently argued, "should, in combination with agricul- 

 ture, greatly ameliorate the sociah conditions of tlie people resident 

 in the areas of . . . the poorer classes of soil . . . should lead to the 

 resettlement on these areas ... of a larger hardy population . . . 

 and . . . result in placing the nation in a position of secuiity in the 

 matter of its timber supplies in the event of war." Incidentally, 

 Mr. Stebbing argues that if we are to have successful coniferous 

 forests in Britain we must get rid of rabbits, bhick-cock and roe-deer ; 



