420 TRAXSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH AnBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



be demolished at the longest in the course of two or three 

 years, would never ])ay any one. Portable sawmills are veiy 

 useful in many cases, but to employ them to cut up battens and 

 scantlings wholesale, in competition with Scandinavian imports, 

 would be as likely of success as placing the old mail coach in 

 competition with the exjjress train. It would therefore be neces- 

 sary that these timber farms should be on a large scale, extending 

 to not less than a thousand acres, in order that timber would 

 ultimately be provided in sufficient quantities to warrant the con- 

 struction on the farm of machinery capable of converting it in 

 the speediest and best manner possible. While a thousand acres 

 is indicated as a minimum size of farm, it is only put forth 

 as a necessity if conversion or manufacture of the timber is 

 intended. Farms to yield only pit timber may be of any size; but 

 the extent of the farms would speedily regulate itself. We 

 should, no doubt, have syndicates springing up from time to time 

 desirous of taking up, perhaps, ten thousand acres in one farm, and 

 it is to be regretted that in many districts, areas of even greater 

 extent are now waste and unproductive. We only instance these 

 few difficulties as those most likely to arise, and suggest remedies 

 to meet them. A hundred other difficulties might crop up when 

 the matter was brought to a practical test, but none of so serious 

 a nature tliat could not be as easily remedied as those we have 

 referred to. 



In the offering of inducements on the part of landlords to 

 encourage timber merchants and consumers to undertake the 

 working of a timber farm, it would be necessary for them not 

 only to give favoui'able conditions in the shape of deferred payment 

 of the early years' rent as indicated, but the rate of rent must be 

 considered somewhat from the point of value attachable or earn- 

 able from the land in its present state. For landlords to begin to 

 consider the lucrative results following from timber cultivation, 

 and base their idea of rent thereon, would be quite destructive to 

 a development of the system. It is certainly quite apparent that 

 timber growing yields a large return to the producer, but this is 

 realisable at the risk of the "farmer," and in return for his 

 cajntal expended, also labour and management. Carried out 

 under this system in a commercial spirit, with a sti'icter regard 

 for economy than lias hitherto been practised, the profits would 

 be very much enhanced ; but nevertheless all these must necessarily 

 become the ])roperty of the speculator, be he landlord or tenant. 



