ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL INDUSTRY OF FORESTRY. 9 



State Demonstration Forest, which led to the purchase 

 of Inverliever; (2) the fact that the only security for 

 profitable afforestation is continuous good management, 

 which can only be guaranteed by the State. 



Afforestation by loan is, in brief, a policy founded on the 

 idea that the ordinary proprietor and his staff being usually 

 more economical and careful than a Government official, the 

 State will find the money, and the owner provide the land 

 and the management. State and owner having a common profit 

 and loss account, and continuing in co-partnery until the latter 

 repays the loan, or until, failing repayment, the State steps 

 into his empty shoes. This last contingency is indeed, under 

 existing conditions, perhaps the most promising aspect of the 

 scheme, but at best it is a penny wise pound foolish policy. 

 The State, reluctant to spend 30s. to 40s. to acquire the 

 land, is nevertheless willing to lend iocs, an acre for planting 

 it, and is expected to hand it over to a management which 

 is defective just because it is liable to change in purpose and 

 capacity from one generation to another. This may involve 

 the State in a loss of ;^ioo per acre, and entail its being 

 obliged in the end to take over a wasted property of ill-grown 

 timber. It has been officially declared that existing woodlands 

 are worked at a dead loss, owing to this difficulty of securing 

 perpetual expert control, and to the incidental ravages of 

 game, wind, fire, and ignorant management, and yet the 

 State is invited to bolster up a system which would retain 

 that particular feature which is the cause of present failure. 



It is not difficult, it is true, for owners to obtain skilled 

 advice, though this may be vitiated by lack of knowledge, 

 on the part of the expert, of local conditions, without which 

 his conclusions are apt to err. The accepted theories of 

 forestry are readily applicable in Scotland, but they are still 

 in the experimental stage. Nor are silvicultural Crichtons in 

 any form to be found under every gooseberry bush. There 

 are many enlightened lairds and admirable foresters, but few 

 amongst them are trained in accordance with Continental 

 standards ; and there is no known instance of a trained 

 enthusiast who has achieved individual success, having a 

 successor competent to carry on his work. In Britain, therefore, 

 there is no silvicultural standard acquired by scientific study 

 and preserved by custom. The agriculturist who cut his corn 



