EXCURSION TO SWEDEN. 85 



country. All of this forest cannot be reached ; much of it 

 being so inaccessible that its felling would not be remunei'ative. 

 What is accessible is being exploited with regard only to 

 present profit. Sweden exports annually to Britain alone about 

 100,000,000 cubic feet of coniferous timber. In this way the 

 country that the Society has just visited may be regarded as 

 antagonistic to British forestry. The timber it exports comes to 

 us in tempting form. It has been grown in regions where the 

 natural density of the forest has not been interfered with. It 

 has passed through saw-mills where the extent of the operations 

 has allowed of the work being done cheaply. Water transport 

 abroad, and preferential railway rates at home, have helped its 

 transmission. All the conditions of its production and sale are 

 against the British woodgrower. He has not cried out for 

 protection, simply because he has so little to defend. It is 

 yearly becoming more evident, indeed, that encouragement rather 

 than antagonism must be the British attitude towards those 

 from whom the timber comes ; but it is the Home foresters' 

 plain duty and interest to render Britain more independent by 

 extensive planting. Only this month (October 2nd) the 

 Scotsman Y>uh\ished a telegram from Sundsvall, Sweden : "The 

 timber exporters of North Sweden have decided to restrict the 

 cutting of wood for export purposes by 25 per cent, as compared 

 with last year." The attention of foresters has often been 

 drawn to the failing foreign supplies, but now that so many 

 of them have actually seen a once densely afforested country 

 largely depleted of its timber, they are naturally more impressed. 

 Trees take long to grow, but they are quickly felled — that is the 

 feeling with which one returns from Sweden. 



