318 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
XXII. The Afforestation of Large Areas in the Highlands and 
Islands of Scotland. By W. A. Mackenzie, Strabane, 
Brodick, Isle of Arran. 
The fact of raw material being the basis upon which the wealth 
and prosperity of a fully peopled country depends, it behoves 
the rulers and leaders of the nation to put forth every 
possible effort to keep up the supply, in order that the workmen 
shall be fully employed, and thus prevent the draining of money 
from their own country to thatof others. In no country is this 
precaution more necessary than in our own, because, notwith- 
standing the opportunities we have for producing a large proportion 
of such timber as we buy in other countries, we, as a nation, take 
no advantage of these opportunities. The whole matter is left 
to individual efforts, which, from various causes, are inadequate to 
make more than a very slight impression on the wants of the 
country, by supplying marketable timber, or afforesting such 
portions of our waste lands as are not already so profitably 
employed. If the people of this country could be brought to see 
the importance of having the waste lands planted,—the importance 
not only to themselves, but to future generations,—they would 
make it a point of first-rate political consequence. Those who 
quite understand the question, and the value such a movement 
would be to the country, think it worthy of the consideration of 
statesmen of the first rank; and it certainly deserves to be laid 
before the people by their representatives, and made a parliamentary 
feature at a general election. Out of about ten millions of acres, 
more or less suitable for the profitable growth of timber, under a 
million acres are so employed, leaving for such a purpose at the 
disposal of Parliament, failing private enterprise, an area of about 
nine millions of acres. At the age of say seventy years, the timber 
on such an area would be worth to the country a clear sum of 
about £240,000,000, after paying for planting, fencing, maintenance, 
and interest at three per cent. on capital for thirty years, because 
after that age such woods, if judiciously managed, would pay all 
costs. But this is not all. Had it been so, it could not be 
supposed that the general public would evince much concern with 
a project which would take from fifty to seventy years to complete. 
ut the general community would, in a few years, receive a very 
direct benefit in the form of a more uniform and genial climate, 
while the benefit commercially to the adjoining lands would double 
