BREP OCH SKRIFVELSER AF OCH TILL CARL VON LINNE 373 



be able to issue these volumes in speedy succession, although his 

 leisure is far less than that of the late emeritus professor, who 

 could devote practically the whole of his time to the prosecution 

 of his work. 



B. D. J. 



British Forestry : its Present Position and Outlook after the War. 

 By E. P. Stebbing, Head of the Forestry Department, 

 University of Edinburgh. John Murray. Pp. xxv, 257, 

 with 13 plates. Price 6s. net. 



With no pretension to be a text-book or manual of British 

 forestry for normal times, this forceful volume is frankly polemical. 

 Mr. Stebbing is very naturally impressed by the enormous con- 

 sumption of timber now in progress and the great demand imminent 

 when the war is over. As he says, " A very considerable destruction 

 of forest is taking place and has taken place within the fighting 

 area. To this must be added enormous amounts of timber felled 

 and used up in the preparation of trenches and fortified lines, 

 which now run into many hundreds of miles ; in the provision of 

 sleepers for the network of light railways behind the firing line and 

 elsewhere, and so on. Young pole growth {i.e. young sapHng 

 woods) has been sacrificed wholesale to form corduroy roadways 

 and for other purposes." 



To replace the present drain on our resources and provide for 

 the future, Mr. Stebbing urges first that six and a half miUion 

 acres in the British Isles should be planted up at once with 

 Tyrolese Larch, Scots Pine, Common Spruce, and Austrian Pine, 

 with, perhaps, Douglas, Sitka Spruce, and Japanese Larch ; and 

 secondly that, to provide for our needs while these are growing, 

 our Government should arrange a lease — apparently for ninety 

 years — of the forests of Finland. 



Two-fifths of the book are devoted to the forest resources 

 of Kussia, one-fifth to an exposition of the amount of our imports of 

 foreign timber, and nearly as much space to showing the extent to 

 which women may be employed in forestry. Most of the matter 

 is reprinted from various recent magazine articles, which involves 

 some repetition, and some of the author's premises have been 

 disputed, e. g. the area suitable and available for immediate 

 planting. We may doubt whether Corsican Pine {Pinus nigra 

 Arnold, var. Poiretiana) is not preferable to Austrian (var. 

 austriaca) ; and we believe that, before the war, Bavarian foresters 

 were already inclined to abandon Larix leptolepis Gord. in favour 

 of L. kurilensis Mayr or even of our own European species, of 

 which the " Tyrolese Larch," of which Mr. Stebbing writes, is 

 merely a local race. Such minor details apart, however, the 

 author has a strong case, to which he does full justice. He 

 has brought together a most interesting mass of evidence, upon 

 which hip great technical experience fully entitles him to form a 

 judgment. 



G. S. B. 



