NOTES AND QUERIES. 229 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Forestry Operations Under The Irish Department 

 OF Agriculture in 1909. 



By the grant of ^£6000 to the Department of Agriculture 

 in the financial year 1909-10, State forestry may be said to 

 have been established in Ireland on a satisfactory basis. This 

 grant is intended to enable the Department to acquire existing 

 woods and lands from the Estate Commissioners under the 

 Land Purchase Acts of 1903 and 1909, and to work them on 

 a commercial system. In most sales to tenants under the Land 

 Acts, the landlord reserves and retains all woods and untenanted 

 lands, together with the demesne, and the woods are managed 

 in exactly the same way as before the sale, by the owner's 

 woodmen and forester. In other cases, again, the owner 

 prefers to sell the entire estate to the Commissioners, who 

 transfer the tenanted land to those in occupation, create new, 

 or enlarge existing holdings from the demesne and untenanted 

 land, and under the arrangement now made, transfer the woods 

 and any lands unsuitable for agriculture to the Department of 

 Agriculture as purchasing tenants. 



So far, three areas of woodland have been acquired under this 

 grant — Dundrum in Tipperary, Aghrane in Galway, and 

 Camolin in Wexford. Dundrum contains 1200 acres, consisting 

 chiefly of oak, spruce, Scots pine, and beech, from 60 to 100 

 years of age, with a little young larch of from 20 to 30 years. A 

 plan has been drawn up for the clearing and replanting of these 

 woods within a period of forty years, and to facilitate the disposal 

 of the rougher timber a sawmill has been erected adjoining the 

 railway station, which here lies in the centre of the woods. At 

 this centre the first year's course of the forestry students is spent, 

 before they proceed to Avondale for the more theoretical part 

 of their training. 



At Aghrane, near Roscommon, 1300 acres of woods, 



