IXAUGURiVL LECTURE IN THE COURSE OF FORESTRY. 411 



any moment, however, these expoi-ts may be diverted to the 

 United States, for even now the latter country could take all 

 the timber which Canada can spare. As a matter of fact our 

 wood-imjjorts from that colony have decreased thirty-two per 

 cent, within the last five years, and as they may be extinguished 

 before other five years, we shall have to depend entirely for our 

 imported timber upon countries over whose policy we have no 

 control Dr Schlich points out that we import £13,000,000 

 worth of forest produce which we could grow at home, for which 

 pui^pose the afforesting of six million acres would be necessary. 

 This land he believes to be all available in Scotland, and strongly 

 urges the desirability of extended sylvicultural operations. 



We have now discussed two of the conditions which have 

 exercised an influence upon British Forestry ; a third is to be 

 found in our fortune in possessing such rich and extensive coal- 

 fields. No country in Europe can approach us in this respect. 

 Whereas wood is still the most important article of fuel in wide 

 regions of the Continent, it is but little valued for heating 

 purposes in this country. Had the case been difierent we would 

 have been compelled to look to our forests to furnish an appreci- 

 able supplement to our supplies of coal-fuel, and necessity would 

 have forced us to bestow more care upon our forest-management. 

 Those who have given their attention to the subject tell us 

 that we are now within measurable distance of the time when 

 we shall have to face a diminishing coal-supply, and, finally, 

 exhausted coal-fields. Although it is probable that the question of 

 providing a substitute for coal will not urgently demand a solution 

 in our time, still it is undeniable that sooner or later it must be 

 faced. Some enthusiastic foresters press the desirability of moz'e 

 extensive tree-})! anting, so that a store of fii'ewood may be laid 

 up against the evil day. That there is wisdom in the suggestion 

 no one will deny, but Professor Helferich's ^ calculations with 

 regard to the matter do not afford us a large measure of comfort. 

 He says that if we take 2 "7 lbs. of wood as giving the same 

 quantity of heat as 1 lb. of coal, and one acx-e planted with 

 Scots pine trees as capable of yielding annually 86i cubic feet 

 of wood, equal to 28 cwts., without the capital stock of timber on 

 the land being encroached upon ; then, in order to yield the 

 equivalent of the coal out-put of England and Wales, it would 

 take a fully productive forest area more than six times the total 



1 Schoiiberg's Handbuch der Politischcn Ockonomic, 2d edit., vol. ii., p. 263. 



