STATE AFFORESTATION IN SCOTLAND. 29 



no means the least profitable part of his estate, and will, it may 

 be hoped, render him willing to spend such available sums as 

 may be required for their gradual development. It is true that 

 in doing this the individual owner of to-day is, in most cases, 

 sowing what he will not reap. But most proprietors are 

 probably able to do something, at least on a moderate scale, 

 towards the improvement of their family estates; and the stocking, 

 annually without intermission during the period of possessioft by each 

 successive owner, of even a small area of constant amount, would be 

 a step in that direction, which might be taken without the 

 imposition of an insupportable burden. 



The ground and the species should be selected under com- 

 petent professional advice ; and the work should be carried on 

 year after year until a forest composed of a series of similarly 

 constituted crops, of regularly graduated ages, and standing on 

 equal areas, has been formed. It would be a great advantage 

 if the future forest could lie in one continuous block, though this 

 is not an absolute necessity. The reason is that large blocks of 

 forest are much to be preferred to smaller ones, because, in their 

 case, the trees affording mutual shelter, develop better ; the 

 length of fencing and its cost per acre vary inversely with the 

 extent of the area enclosed ; fewer roads are needed ; work is 

 more concentrated, and is consequently cheaper, and more easily 

 and completely supervised. If, for example, a proprietor had 

 decided that he could annually plant out an area of lo acres, 

 and if 80 years were required to bring the crop to its most 

 profitable dimensions, the total area of the future forest would be 

 800 acres; and so for every additional 10 acres which could be 

 undertaken annually. It would, as a matter of course, be 

 essential that the proprietor should make such a record of his 

 scheme as would enable his successors to go on with it. 



When once the suggested forest has been fully constituted, 

 the owner, who will restock the ground as it is cleared, certainly 

 continues to sow what he will not reap ; but, on the other hand, 

 he reaps what he did not sow, for year by year he will cut a full- 

 grown crop, which had been planted by one or other of his 

 predecessors, and in the case of crops which are to stand long 

 enough to yield large timber, thinnings which can at least pay 

 all annual outlay, will become silviculturally desirable, long 

 before the felling age has been reached. Many proprietors 

 appear to shrink from undertaking afforestation, because they 



