BRITISH FORESTRY AND ITS FUTURE PROSPECTS. 171 



40,000 acres of forest land have for years been lying waste 

 there, simply because, under Clauses 5 and 6 of the Act of 1877, 

 no clearing and planting may be done. So far as existing 

 enactments permit of the application of economic principles to 

 the Crown forests, a great step in the right direction has been 

 taken by Mr Stafford Howard, one of the present Commissioners 

 of Woods and Forests, in having a working plan prepared for 

 portions of the Forest of Dean by Mr Hill, a trained forester 

 of varied experience in Europe and India, and in appointing 

 another well trained forester, Mr Popert, to carry out its 

 provisions. And no doubt other portions of the Crown forests 

 will gradually be brought under economic treatment as oppor- 

 tunity offers. 



Almost simultaneously herewith various hopeful signs have also 

 been shown of landowners gradually awakening to the fact that 

 their woodlands are not in the state in which they might be, 

 and that immediate steps should be taken to bring them into 

 economic condition, if the present or the future owners are to 

 realise to anything like the full the benefits which the fore- 

 shadowed rise in the price of timber indicates as practically 

 certain. Substantial advantages can only be gained if the 

 woods are worked economically and in accordance with care- 

 fully prepared working plans, such as have recently been made 

 for the wooded portions of their estates, and approved and 

 adopted by the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Selborne, 

 Mr Munro Ferguson of Raith and Novar, and others. 



The suggestion of a working plan — the idea being a new one 

 in Britain — has not yet found approval. It is not quite under- 

 stood, and it is therefore suspected as likely to hamper estate 

 management instead of assisting it. The object of a working 

 plan is to carry out, in the best and most economical manner, 

 the wishes and desires of the landowner. Its aim is to effect 

 improvements by making such recommendations as to the treat- 

 ment of woodlands, or the formation of new crops of timber, 

 as will lead to the soil being utilised to the fullest extent practic- 

 able. By judicious arrangement and rotation of the thinnings 

 and falls of timber and of coppice, it will strive to attain, as fully 

 as is feasible, the object in view of the proprietor, and will seek 

 to obtain for him the largest returns which can be continuously 

 harvested from the given soil and situation, in the shape of a 

 regular yield sustained annually. 



