64 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
they would alter altogether, and to their own advantage, the con- 
ditions under which they dispose of so much of their home wood. 
The timber merchant who now travels hither and thither over the 
country picking up small lots where he can find them for transport 
to his, probably distant, mills, at a cost which eats a big hole in 
the value of the trees to the landowner, would find it worth his 
while—and, for that matter, it would be worth while for the Jand- 
owner himself—to erect, in the vicinity of the forest, mills for the 
purpose of converting and preparing the timber, and to put up 
machinery for the extraction of useful products from the waste 
wood. In such conditions a steady market could be created, in 
which the advantage would lie altogether on the side of the home- 
grown article, and materials, the débris of the forest, now thrown 
aside as useless, would be turned to account, to the greater benefit 
of the landowner. Encouragement, too, would be given to the 
establishment of local industries dependent upon forest growth, 
through which fresh outlets for forest produce would be provided. 
The amount of profit returnable from timber cultivation must, 
of course, vary with the circumstances of the area in each case, but 
in comparing values it must always be borne in mind that timber 
land is land which can yield no agricultural rent. The official 
statistics relating to Continental State forests show us the result of 
forestry on a large scale, and it is interesting to note how, under 
what we must believe to be an equally efficient system of forestry 
management, the net revenue from the several areas differs greatly. 
Thus from its two million acres of forest area Bavaria draws a little 
over five shillings per acre per annum; Wurtemburg, with nearly 
half a million acres, gets a return of about eleven shillings; and 
Saxony, with a somewhat less area, receives over seventeen 
shillings per acre per annum. For this country we have no such 
figures. Our State forests result in a loss. It is unfortunate, too, 
that no returns are available from private forests and woodlands, 
either in Britain or abroad. Estimates of possible profits in this 
country we have abundantly, but solid figures of expenditure and 
receipt in relation to timber-growing there are none. By the 
favour of Mr Munro Ferguson, M.P., who, as a landowner, exhibits 
a most enlightened spirit in regard to forestry, I am, however, able 
to cite the case of a pine and larch wood at Novar, in Ross-shire, 
twenty-four acres in extent, which was clean cut in 1883, and gives 
instructive figures. After sixty-one years’ growth on land similar 
to that which in the neighbourhood yields a grazing rent of from 
