FARM FORESTRY. I31 



not likely to be restored. In too many cases tenant farmers 

 who have become proprietors of their farms have been induced 

 to raise revenue by the sale of timber, thus adding not only to 

 the area of waste places on the farm, but deteriorating the value 

 of adjacent lands by the removal of shelter and the inevitable 

 increase of noxious weeds which readily spring up on such 

 cleared areas. 



On hill farms the value of shelter-belts is incalculable. They 

 temper the climate by reducing its extremes, and the conditions 

 in high altitudes are thus brought nearer those of the warmer 

 lowlands (valleys and plains). The fear is sometimes expressed 

 that planting will reduce the areas available for grazing, and 

 thus decrease the production of mutton, but, as a very competent 

 authority has recently pointed out, suitable shelter-belts on 

 exposed uplands may, in the cases of sheep, be the means of 

 saving hundreds of pounds in a single snow-storm in a single 

 night.i 



The proper utilisation of waste places on the farm by growing 

 timber crops will improve both farm live stocks and crops, it 

 will increase our timber supplies, and, in the interests of national 

 economy, it will make use of an important but hitherto much 

 neglected natural asset, and it will add to the amenities and 

 comfort of life by its undoubted aesthetic value. 



1 See Mr Bell's paper, " The Advantages of Shelter Belts," Transactio7is 

 of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, vol. xxxv., part 2, p. 107. 



