218 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



enlightened principle followed by Britain, that her great colonies 

 shall be self-governing, any interfei-ence with their internal 

 management is out of the question. Amongst the latter, Canada 

 and Australia take the chief places as regards the supply of 

 timber. Although forest conservancy in Australia is anything 

 but enlightened, we can count for a good many years to come 

 on a considerable quantity of hardwoods. These, however, will 

 only serve for certain limited purposes, while 87 per cent, of our 

 imports are coniferous timbers, the supply of which requires our 

 chief attention. Canada could furnish them, if the Governments 

 of that country woidd put their shoulders to the wheel. Without 

 going into details, I may say that the lumber and milling 

 interests of Canada are so powerful, that it seems almost hopeless 

 to expect a decided change of policy in the management of her 

 forests. In the meantime the resources of the latter are rapidly 

 decreasing. 



Under these circumstances, let us consider what can be done at 

 home. With the exception of about 67,000 acres of Crown forest, 

 all British woodlands are in the hands of private proprietors, or 

 one or two municipalities. Most of the woodlands are maintained 

 for landscape beauty, shooting purposes or shelter, so that their 

 yield cannot be considerably increased. Again, the 24,000,000 

 acres of land, of which I spoke above, are private property. 

 Of that area a large portion is fit for afforestation, and the 

 question arises whether this can be achieved, and if so, in what 

 manner 1 



In a paper read before the Society of Arts in November 1899, 

 it was boldly proposed that Parliament should allot £1,000,000 a 

 year during the next hundred years, so as to acquire and afforest 

 6,000,000 acres of land, which would yield all the ordinary 

 timber required in the United Kingdom. It was argued, that 

 only the State was in a position to do justice to the scheme for 

 any length of time, as has been done in other European countries 

 The position of Britain is, in this respect, somewhat different from 

 that of other continental states. In the latter, the areas now 

 forming the State forests were, with small exceptions, always 

 State or Crown property, and it required only the gradual 

 introduction of systematic and scientific management to render 

 them highly remunerative. In Great Britain the lands are, as 

 already stated, private property, and it would not be easy in 

 England, or even in Scotland, to acquire large areas, because 



