6 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and the lack of all security on private estates for continuous good 

 management from the time that the forest is formed until 

 matured timber is placed upon the market. We do not feel 

 justified in urging the Government to embark forthwith upon any 

 general scheme of State Forests under present circumstances ; but 

 the question of planting suitable waste lands under the control of 

 the Crown, or over which the Crown exercises manorial rights, 

 where it may be proved practicable and desirable, is, for the 

 reasons above mentioned, worth the attention of the Commis- 

 sioners of Woods and Forests. 



11. In order that the country should be enabled to appreciate 

 the extent to which a great rural industry might be created in 

 the national interest, and to clear the way for any effective 

 treatment of the allied questions of the utilisation of waste land 

 and the increase of the woodland areas, we recommend that the 

 Government department charged with the collection of land 

 statistics, should take steps to compile a statement of areas 

 presumably suitable for afforestation in Great Britain. 



Existing Woodlands. 



12. The present condition of existing woodlands has been 

 repeatedly and clearly reviewed by many eminent authorities. It 

 is the common verdict that timber of the kind and quality im- 

 ported in such large quantities from the Baltic and similar 

 temperate regions can be grown as well here as anywhere ; in fact, 

 it is a matter of common knowledge that European "red wood" 

 and " white wood," so highly esteemed for structural purposes, are 

 yielded by the Scots pine and the spruce, two of the commonest 

 trees of British woodlands. That foreign is so generally preferred 

 to home-grown timber is in no way due to unsuitability of soil or 

 climate, but is entirely due to our neglect of sylvicultural prin- 

 ciples. It is hardly too much to say that until within the last ten 

 years or so owners of woodlands, with few exce])tions, failed to 

 realise that the shape, size, and quality of trees could be influenced 

 by anything that they could do. They seemed to imagine that 

 the character of the final product was largely a matter of accident, 

 whereas it is mainly determined by management. They failed to 

 recognise that cultural treatment which suits oak or ash is 

 unsuited to pine or spruce ; and so it has come to pass that British 

 coniferous timber has been generally excluded by architects from 

 building specifications. As another instance of this, we may refer 



