ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY FORESTRY SOCIETY. 95 



considerable. Assuming that in Scotland there would ultimately 

 be about 2,000,000 acres of forest a labour staff of 20,000 men 

 would be required, one man for each 100 acres as compared 

 with one man needed for 1000 acres in sheep farming. Allowing 

 for three dependants to each woodman this would mean a 

 population dependent on the forests for their livelihood of 

 80,000 persons, but this estimate did not take into account 

 the number of persons who would be engaged in the wood- 

 manufacturing industries. One of the chief duties of the 

 Commission would be to foster and stimulate the development 

 of these industries, and there would ultimately come a time, 

 if their efforts were successful, when the number of persons 

 employed in wood-manufacturing industries would considerably 

 exceed the number engaged in the tending of the forests. 

 A long time must necessarily elapse before they could reach 

 this stage, and the development of woodland industries depend- 

 ing on home timber must be a slow business at the best, but 

 the industries already in existence which partly depended on 

 home timber and partly on foreign timber would form a 

 convenient starting-point for future developments. 



The chief wood-manufacturing industries were at present 

 localised chiefly in the large urban centres — the city of Aberdeen, 

 for instance, was one of the chief wood-consuming centres in 

 the United Kingdom and was the centre of thriving box-making 

 factories and bobbin works, industries which would have to be 

 developed and expanded — but with the increase in size of our 

 forests it would be possible for similar industries to be started 

 in districts at present thinly populated and situated at some 

 distance from the urban centres. They could also hope 

 eventually to see the starting of new industries, such as the 

 erection of pulp-making factories, and of wood-distilling plants, 

 in heavily-wooded districts. 



The question might be asked how would their Universities 

 and the Forestry Departments be affected by these developments. 

 The Commission would insist on every man who wished to 

 become a forest officer getting a practical training in forestry 

 in addition to being well grounded in the scientific aspects of 

 the subject. Students wishing to qualify themselves for such 

 appointments, besides going through the course of study for 

 a degree or diploma in forestry, would have to serve a two-years' 

 apprenticeship in the forests connected with the woodmen's 



