FORESTRY. 19 
so long as it is young, but there are few things more cheerless than 
the same strip when the trees are approaching maturity, and the 
wind blows draughtily through it. The most successful sea 
shelter which I have seen is on Lord Leicester’s estate of 
Holkham, where miles of sand dunes have been planted with four 
different species of conifer, Scotch pine, pinaster, Austrian, and 
Corsican, and the Corsican has beaten all the others in a very 
remarkable manner. It even reproduces itself, although there is 
much ground game about. 
TIMBER FOR ESTATE PURPOSES. 
4th. Timber for Estate Purposes—A most important object 
this, and one that is usually accomplished—but at what a cost! 
I do not hesitate to say that, on many estates, if the rent of the 
ground, annual rates, cost of planting, and wage bill be reckoned, 
much money would be saved if not a foot of home wood were 
used and foreign supplies bought from the timber merchant. And 
yet you say that timber ought to be grown for the market at a 
profit! Certainly it ought; but not on the present system—not 
unless timber is treated as a crop, with a regular fall, and grown 
of good quality. It is the cut-and-come-again method that is 
ruinous both in cost and in quality. The annual fall ought to 
supply both estate purposes and the timber market. Yet I have 
heard within the last few months landowners complaining that 
they cannot get an offer even for fine timber. No; because they 
have not secured a proper business connection. To do that, two 
things are necessary, as any greengrocer will tell you—regularity 
of supply and uniformity of quality. It is estimated that there 
are 3,000,000 acres of woodland of sorts in Great Britain and 
Ireland. In Belgium there are only 1,750,000 acres, yielding a 
return of £4,000,000 a year. At that rate British woodlands 
ought to yield £7,000,000 a year. At what figure would the most 
liberal estimate fix the return? Yet British timber, properly 
grown, would be no whit inferior to Belgian. 
The fact is, there is no regular trade in home timber. 
Merchants cannot rely upon a steady home supply, so they have 
recourse to countries where they can be sure of getting exactly the 
quantity and quality they require. Mr Nisbet has put the case 
concisely :—“ Available markets cannot be utilised to the best 
advantage if the quantity of wood offered one year is large, the 
