NOTE ON RAITH AND NOVAK WORKING PLANS. 97 



obtain a surprising amount of ready money upon a parcel of feus, 

 a respectable sum upon a pit, or farm land, something even on a 

 sporting rental ; but, try to pawn woods for a term of years, and 

 the man of business will change the conversation. There is no 

 security for fixed income from woods, and there is no rotation 

 for the timber harvest. Once show, however, an annual return 

 insured and assured, with every reasonable precaution under a 

 fixed plan, and then the woodland, in due course, becomes a real 

 asset, offering larger security on many estates than either its 

 agricultural or sporting rentals. There are other reasons than 

 that of the lack of periodical returns from timber which account 

 for the depreciation of woodlands, whether as a property or as 

 security. Where the management is generally defective, where 

 man cuts, fire burns, water rots, or the wind blows, as each lists ; 

 where the squirrel reigns at the head of the tree and the rabbit 

 at the foot, then there is undoubtedly every cause for owner and 

 creditor alike to refrain from attaching any money value to this 

 class of property. 



There are, also, hopeful circumstances which encourage us to 

 deal with our woodlands. Our leading foresters, though deficient 

 in technical training, are educated, enterprising, and reliable ; our 

 nurserymen are probably as good as any ; whilst our time-expired 

 Indian forest officers, when they really grapple with the practical 

 details of British forestry, are well able either to lay down plans 

 or to direct the general management of timber. Again, the work 

 of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, and the advantages 

 offered by the various courses of lectures, as well as the renewed 

 interest in improvement shown by various classes of persons 

 connected with forestry, has tended of late to place the industry 

 upon a surer basis. 



A comprehensive Plan, as the highest test of scientific training 

 and professional experience, should obviously be prepared by a 

 recognised authority who is familiar with the procedure of the 

 best Continental forest schools. In what follows, however, the 

 word " Plan " is used in a more general sense, so as to embrace 

 not only those counsels of perfection which may not at once 

 appeal to everybody, but the tentative schemes of fellings and 

 plantings which may be temporarily organised as substitutes. 

 Some of those who will not undertake a regular scheme may 

 nevertheless draft a rotation of plantings and fellings to provide 

 for younger crops being ready as the older ones become exhausted, 



