I 8 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH AKBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



^380 ! Using the figure of cost of 1000 francs per hectare, 

 M. Laporte works out that the return would be 100 per cent, 

 per annum. 



Astonishing though these estimates are, they are supported 

 by results obtained in Portugal, at Abrantes. A Mr 

 William Tract (perhaps this is really the Mr W. Tait of whom 

 these "Notes "made mention in January 191 2) having lost 

 his vines from phylloxera, planted 600 hectares of sandy ground, 

 deep, but not fertile, with eucalyptus. The wood is now some 

 25 years old and the trees 30 to 50 metres high, and there are 

 some 1200 stems to the hectare. This property is now valued 

 at from ^320,000 to ^^400,000. The Penarroya Company in 

 fact offers the former figure, while the proprietor holds out for 

 the latter. Assuming that the cost of the work was 1000 francs 

 a hectare (which is certainly too high), an outlay of 600,000 

 francs has in 25 years yielded 8 to 10 million francs. 



It is not clear which eucalypts were used in the Penarroya 

 domain. Obviously the situation marvellously suits those which 

 were used, but how can the soil fertility be maintained in pure 

 eucalyjitus forest, or even if the pines spoken of were mixed in? 

 In such a blazing hot country a mixture with eucalyptus of 

 some shade-bearing, soil-enriching species analogous to beech 

 should have great results. Perhaps Spanish chestnut would do, 

 for the shade of eucalyptus is very light. Obviously a dense 

 undergrowth must react beneficently on the soil, and so on the 

 trees of the overgrowth. 



VI. — The Government forests of Rumania, without mention- 

 ing those belonging to the Crown, comprise 2,680,000 acres. 

 They are very far from being developed ; export lines are 

 lacking, and they are neither demarcated nor surveyed. But 

 they are submitted to an ambitious Forest Act, of which the 

 terms are very strict. Practically all mountain forest, even 

 private property, is, for protective reasons, placed under the 

 charge of the Government Forest Administration, and dis- 

 forestment is severely checked. There are rigid rules about 

 grazing, and after a fire no grazing is allowed for 10 years — no 

 doubt to stop the practice of setting a light to the forest to 

 produce a crop of new green grass. There is, as in the Indian 

 Forest Act, power to compound forest offences, a plan which in 

 wild and undeveloped countries, where magistrates' courts are 

 few and far between, is most valuable from a forest point of 



