2IO TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



forest operations. The amount of daily labour, including that 

 of women and children, required in the working of the Prussian 

 State forests, is estimated at two work days for each acre, or a 

 total of nearly twelve million days. This includes contract work. 



The number of officials, as well as their salaries, has been 

 considerably augmented since 1908; and though the gross 

 income derived from the Prussian State forests has already 

 recovered, and will doubtless grow, the net revenue has fallen, 

 and it is more than questionable whether the same net income 

 per acre will ever again be realised unless new sources of 

 revenue are opened out. 



The complete Prussian State forest budget for 1910, which 

 has just come to hand, indicates that this has been effected, in 

 various ways, chiefly by leasing out agricultural lands and 

 shootings formerly in the hands of forest officials. The budget 

 exhibits the following figures : — 



Ordinary Income . . /6, 415, 000 

 Extraordinary Income . 375,000 



Total Income, ^6,790,000 



Ordinary Expenditure . ;^2,957,ooo 

 Extraordinary Expenditure 511,000 



Total Expenditure, ^3,468,000 



leaving a net surplus of ^3,322,000, or ^442,000 more than in 

 the preceding year. 



The absorption of the administration of all State lands into 

 a joint administration is under serious consideration. 



This project, if carried, would doubtlessly effect a considerable 

 saving in th.' cost of the present dual administration; and, as 

 pointed out, the Prussian forest officers of the day are as 

 competent to undertake the management of State lands, other 

 than forests, as the present staff of purely legally trained 

 officers, if not more so. 



Apart from persons engaged in the timber trade, or in the 

 transport of forest produce by rail, road, sea, or rivers of 

 whom no statistics are available to us, the wood-using industries 

 give, in accordance with the last enumeration, employment to 

 upwards of twelve million persons. 



The Labour Crisis. 



The situation, in regard to the scarcity of agricultural and 

 forest labour, is one of economic, social, moral, and political 

 importance of the first magnitude. The productive power of 

 the land has so far increased — but how? To a great extent 



