352 REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 
able ; anything that can be drained is suitable.”—‘“ Of course you 
are aware that a great deal of the Irish bog could not be drained 
from want of fall?” “That is so. I was only a short time in 
Ireland, and this report, from which the figure is taken, was 
written at the request of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. I 
could only make a guess to the effect that probably half of the 
available area is fit; I could not go further than that.”—“ Have 
you formed any estimate of the amount of waste land available 
for planting in Scotland?” “I believe the area is very much 
larger than it is in Ireland ; practically 70 per cent. of Scotland 
is waste land.”—“ But it is not all suitable for planting?” ‘ Not 
all, but I should say a very good proportion was.”—‘“‘ Have you 
estimated the effect of climate and of violent gales, especially in 
the north part of these islands, upon the value or the profitable 
nature of planting?” ‘The violent gales will, no doubt, affect 
the returns where the woods are directly exposed to them, but I 
do not think that the loss would be so great as is generally 
assumed.”—‘ The late Duke of Buccleuch spent a great many 
years in planting a large extent of the south of Scotland ; anda 
year or two ago, in 1883, two successive gales came, and it was 
estimated that 1,250,000 trees went down; have you any know- 
ledge of a similar occurrence on the Continent?” ‘I was, last 
September, in a large forest district called the Bavarian Forest, 
which does not mean the forest of Bavaria, but is a particular 
very extensive district running near the boundary between 
Bavaria and Bohemia. I was not prepared for this question, and 
I could not give the exact area, but it is a very extensive forest 
district. In the year 1870, if I remember rightly, they had a 
gale in this large extent of forest which threw down so much 
timber that, in spite of the efforts of the officers in charge (and 
the management is a very good one), all the available labour had 
not removed all the timber in 1885 when I was there ; that was 
fifteen years afterwards ; some of it was entirely rotten.”——“ That 
of course would entail a very great loss?” ‘ A very considerable 
loss.” —** You alluded to Scottish foresters, and you were kind 
enough to call them ‘shrewd ;’ do you think there is a more 
practical knowledge of forestry in the north than in the south ?” 
* T do not know that; but I think there are more extensive forest 
lands in Scotland in the hands of one owner, and therefore, pro- 
bably, there are better forests there. There is more appearance 
of development in Scotland.”—‘ Your observations lead you to 
