180 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
the proprietors of the land, as well as to the country at large, not 
only on account of the increased production of forest produce, but 
also by reason of the larger employment of labour, that would 
follow a movement to extend the forests. The following sentences 
are taken from a recent article in the 7imes newspaper on “ Men 
and Deer in Scotland ” :—‘‘ Deer forests by no means bring their 
owners the large rentals popularly supposed. The famous Black- 
mount Forest does not yield, it would appear from the Crown 
agent’s figures, 6d. an acre. The group of forests in Inverness- 
shire, belanging to Mrs Chisholm, is let at about 3d. an acre. 
Even ld. an acre is not an unknown rate. In Sutherlandshire 
sporting rents seem to be, on the whole, higher than elsewhere. 
But 1s. an acre would appear to be quite unusual; and we have 
no reason to think, notwithstanding the popularity of deer- 
stalking and the growth of wealth, that rents will improve. 
Many Highland proprietors let their shootings as regularly as they 
let their farms, and these are not times in which they are likely 
to turn a deaf ear to people who say, with any show of good sense, 
‘I can tell you how to make more out of your estate than by 
afforesting it.’” 
It is not necessary for me to say that “afforestation,” in the sense 
in which it is here used, is the exact opposite of the kind of 
afforestation that we are assembled here to study; and how such 
a misleading term as ‘‘ forest” came to be applied to a tract of 
land which is devoid, or almost devoid, of trees, and on which it 
is not intended to promote the growth of trees, I cannot explain.} 
If the figures given in the Z7zmes are anything like correct, the 
rate per acre derivable from a deer forest cannot be called high. 
The average profit on the whole of the French forests, taken 
together, was, for the three years immediately preceding 1886, 
about 7s. an acre. But of course the really important point is the 
rate of interest on their capital value, which shootings and forests 
respectively yield. Dr Schlich, basing his calculation on Weise’s 
Yield Tables for the Scots Pine, concludes that land which 
cannot be let for the raising of field crops, for shooting or other 
purposes, at a minimum rental of 24 per cent. on the value of the 
land, may with advantage be planted up with Scotch pine or other 
similarly remunerative tree ; and I fancy that, even after excluding 
bare upper ranges, which it would not pay to deal with, a good 
1] have since been told that the ground is supposed to carry a ‘‘ forest” 
of antlers ! 
