418 TRANSACTIONS OF KOYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



XXIV. On the Creation of Leasehold Timber Farms. By 

 A. T. Williamson, CoistorpLine. 



Public attention has in recent years been directed, as it has 

 never been before, to the wisdom of planting our waste lands, 

 and thus providing a supply of timber for future generations, near 

 and remote. The enormously increasing volume of importations 

 of timber, and the decreasing available supply of home produce, 

 have made clear to the public mind the serious state of matters 

 into which we haA'e drifted in this respect. Landlords in general 

 have failed in their duty heretofore in utilising the resources at 

 their control towards maintaining the supply of home-grown 

 timber, and although many have shown excellent examples in 

 z'ecent years, still the fringe only of the resources of the country 

 has been touched. The Government also have been totally 

 indifferent in regard to the subject. Some other method must 

 theiefore be propounded whereby the waste lands, mountain 

 sides, rugged valleys, and low lands, may be made to yield the 

 produce of which they are capable in the shape of timber, instead 

 of being, as we are at present, dependent upon foreign countries. 



Perhaps in no ])revious year's experience has the question been 

 brought home more directly than at presient, of the vast loss our 

 poverty in home timber produce is to the nation's wealth. The 

 levival in trade lately experienced so greatly increased our 

 demands, that the immediate consequence was an enhanced value 

 of foreign timber imports, the whole advance going into the 

 pockets of the foreign producer ; instances of the rise in prices 

 being so remarkable, that " fresh woods and pastui-es new " have 

 had to be looked out from whence to import the necessary 

 supplies. Quebec pine timber has for generations been the popular 

 commodity, particularly in the West of Scotland, for the industrial 

 trades, but the price has so greatly advanced that a new timber 

 has been looked out in the Far West, and shipped from British 

 Columbian ports to this country, a greater distance, no doubt, but 

 in the meantime at a lower and paying price. 



It may be asked, is this state of matters to continue? Are 

 our abundant resources to lie idle while the beneficial effects of 

 j>eriodical revivals of trade pass entirely into the hands of the 

 foreigner as regards our timber wants ? Seeing that both the 

 Government and the landlords have failed to supply a remedy. 



