DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON BRITISH FORESTRY. O 



growing stock in this fortst in 1839 averaged 2128 cubic feet 

 per acre, and in 1893 it was 3276 cubic feet. The receipts per 

 acre were 48 "Ss., and the expenses 10 -38., the net receipts being 

 38s. per acre per annum." This statement refers to land not worth 

 more than 43. per acre per annum for agricultural or pastoral 

 purposes. 



Imiyortcmce of Afforestation. 



9. The importance of afforestation in such a district as the 

 Highlands of Scotland will be readily grasped. Rough land is 

 extensive, capital as a rule scarce, and great woodland areas, 

 where well managed, have proved financially successful, while 

 profits on sheep farming have of late years reached a very low 

 point. Laud under forests would give healthy employment to a 

 much greater number of persons than the same area under sheep 

 Many hill pastoral farms have one shepherd to three or four 

 thousand acres, but much of such land, for various reasons, is 

 unsuited to the growth of timber for profit. We believe that we 

 are well within the mark in assuming that land quite capable of 

 producing high-class timber employs only one shepherd per 

 thousand acres if used as a sheep run ; while all the evidence on 

 this point goes to show that similar land when under timber, 

 gives employment to at least one man per hundred acres; and 

 this without taking account of the labour requisite to remove and 

 work up the timber. The possibilities, therefore, of forestry as a 

 means of furnishing remunerative labour to an increased rural 

 population are great. 



Afforestation of Waste Lands. 



10. It will be found in our evidence that experts of high 

 authority have recorded the opinion, already expressed in many 

 reliable publications, that the world is rapidly approaching a 

 shortage, if not actual dearth, in its supply of coniferous timber, 

 which constitutes between 80 and 90 per cent, of the total British 

 timber imports. The great area of waste land in these islands 

 which might be afibrested, and with regard to which such valu- 

 able evidence has been led, thus becomes a matter of grave 

 national concern. No individual effort is likely to cope with 

 such extensive afforestation, not only because British forestry, as 

 now practised, is inefficient, but because of the capital required, 

 the time during which ic remains sunk before producing income, 



