58 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
and usefully enforced. For here we have, broadly speaking, no land 
“ out of occupation.” In the storm-swept plateaux, which produce 
nothing but tufty grass, we have what I suppose “ statistics” would 
schedule as wasteland. But even these have their fringe of weather- 
beaten spruce or other firs, whose flat tops afford a protection and 
shelter to their more favoured brethren. Nearly one-half—42 per 
cent., I believe, is the exact proportion—of this part of the empire 
is occupied with forest. And of this forest perhaps three-fourths 
are beech. 
The beech, as we know, has the credit of dominating and sub- 
duing all other trees which come within its influence. Neither 
grass nor underwood is tolerated under its shade. And if, in order 
to satisfy the demands of the vine-growers for stakes to support 
their trailing and clinging crops, some oaks are grown and main- 
tained, their presence in long-drawn lines appears only to emphasise 
the position, viz., that we are in a country of beechwoods. Not 
the far-spreading beech trees of our parks and meadows, but the tall 
plain columns crowned with a continuous canopy of leaves, through 
which the sun, with side-long gleam, strikes in those mingled lines 
of light and shade on which artists love to dwell, and in which 
all lovers of Nature delight. 
Foresters will understand what sort of woods these were, which 
were estimated to contain between 500 and 600 cubic metres! of 
solid timber per hectare,? worth something over 10,000 marks ; * 
while on every side were bundles of firewood, also of beech, con- 
taining 4 cubic metres, and worth from 30 to 40 marks each, The 
gross revenue derived is 40 marks or thereby per hectare, reduced 
by expenses of management, etc., to a nett revenue of 20 marks per 
hectare. 
I am not going to follow the statistician into any application of 
these figures to the waste lands of Great Britain. The agricultural 
statistics will, I understand, make him a present of something like 
28 millions of acres of waste and unoccupied land in our islands, 
and allowing for deductions, after the usual gracious way of esti- 
mators, he can yet obtain a very handsome revenue as well as capital, 
on paper. 
I will rather pass to another item of practical experience in 
Nassau, which seemed to me to be rather high. The cost of plant- 
1A metre is = 3.280 English feet. 
2 A hectare is = 2.471 English acres. 
3 A mark is = 114d. sterling. 
