2 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



are entirely with us, and who are not going to let the subject 

 drop. But perhaps the ground upon which we may plant our 

 hopes most firmly is the evident determination that, at the end 

 of the war, something shall be done to render our country more 

 self-supporting than it has hitherto been. During a long period 

 of peace we have allowed ourselves to become dependent upon 

 foreign countries for many things which we ought in future to 

 produce for ourselves. A resolute effort, we are assured, is 

 about to be made to develop our national resources more 

 fully. 



Now if there is one direction more than another in which our 

 national resources are capable of development, it is in the 

 production of timber. There is a large and obvious field here, 

 and one from which a really valuable return is as certain as 

 anything can be. Timber is one of the prime necessaries of our 

 industrial life, and must always remain so. The amount of 

 timber used in our principal industries, such as collieries, 

 railways, and building trades, is enormous. The extent of it 

 may be measured by the amount of timber we import annually 

 to supplement our home supply. The year before the war, as 

 you will all remember, the value of the imported timber was 

 over forty million pounds. And while we spend this vast sum 

 on foreign wood, we have millions of acres in Scotland which 

 are not merely 7vaste land, but wasted land. This land, which 

 will grow nothing else, is admirably adapted for growing trees, 

 and the very trees we most require. Ninety per cent, of the 

 timber we import is coniferous timber; and every authority on 

 silviculture, whether native or foreign, assures us that there is 

 no country where the soil and climate are so well suited for 

 coniferous wood as Scotland. All that is being obtained from 

 this land at present is perhaps a shilling or two an acre for 

 grazing purposes. If it were planted, it would before long yield 

 many times its present rent, while retaining in this country, for 

 the benefit of the nation, huge sums of money which now go 

 into the pocket of the foreigner. The forests, as they grew, 

 would become an ever-increasing national asset ; and in any 

 future emergency, such as that in which we find ourselves 

 to-day, there would be no fear of a timber famine. The State 

 would find in its own forests all the timber it required, and our 

 industries would be carried on under normal conditions, 

 undisturbed by panic or by panic prices. 



