REPORT OF GENERAL MEETING. 35 



at home and compete with the American timber. If you can 

 do it quality for quality, price for price — if it is a better quality, 

 we will pay a better price." 



The Chairman. — "May I ask one question? You have 

 referred to the necessity of peeling and seasoning of pit-wood. 

 Does that refer to the smaller sizes of pit-wood that only have 

 a short life?" 



Mr Carlovv. — " We would like it all peeled and seasoned if 

 possible. It is more convenient to handle. It is limited in 

 weight, railway carriage is less, and it lasts longer in the mine, 

 even though it be in a place where we do not wish it to last 

 an exceedingly long time." 



Mr Adam Spiers, Edinburgh. — -" From what we have heard 

 to-day I think the necessity of directing our attention to the 

 production of timber in our own country is becoming more 

 apparent than ever. Had the advice of the Arboricultural 

 Society, freely given for over thirty or fifty years, been taken 

 advantage of we would not have found ourselves in such 

 a plight for timber at the present moment. I have no 

 hesitation in saying that I think we can grow timber as well 

 as any other country in the world, and a larger variety of it. 

 It has been said that we can grow in eighty years what it 

 would take 120 years to grow elsewhere in Europe. I am 

 cutting a plantation at the moment, it is only from forty-five 

 to fifty years of age, and the trees have from 25 to 35 cubic 

 feet in them. The price was over ^i"] an acre, and I think 

 the land would only be worth 12s. for agriculture. That is 

 surely very good remuneration for timber-growing. The fault 

 in this country is the patch-work forestry we have persisted in 

 so long. If we would grow timber in sufficient areas, we need not 

 despair of providing timber for the pits just as well as is done in 

 Continental forests. Surely the area could be extended, and 

 this would give enormous revenue to the country. I think the 

 population engaged in the production of timber could be 

 enormously multiplied, and it is surely people we want on 

 the land. Why not produce more hardwoods than we do? 

 Some members talk about oak. I do not say we produce 

 the same fine cabinet-making oak in our country that we can 

 get from America and other places, but for durability there is 

 nothing can equal it. A waggon tram made of home oak will 

 last twice as long as any American oak tram. American oak 



