ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL INDUSTRY OF FORESTRY. I I 



The immediate essentials are a Demonstration Forest costing 

 about ;^i 00,000 to buy and to equip, and a Board of Forestry 

 for Scotland to deal with and to develop the scheme of the 

 1902 Report. Since that date much has happened. Public 

 opinion has ripened, legislation is impending which would 

 greatly reduce the amount of land available for silviculture, a 

 timber famine is in sight, and our views have been supported 

 by the admirable Report of the Irish Forestry Committee. 



We do not know what the true silvicultural area of Scotland 

 is, or where it mainly lies, and to ascertain this would be one 

 of the first duties of the Board. Private owners have enough 

 to do in setting in order their existing and decreasing woodland 

 area. The Board would have to plan the rest. This pre- 

 liminary undertaking would take some years, during which it 

 would bring the Demonstration Forest into working order, 

 train its foresters, and conduct experiments in combination 

 with the many landowners who have done so much original 

 research work of recent years on their own estates. 



Why should the Government hesitate to purchase either in 

 the open market, or with compulsory powers? It cannot be 

 because of the price of the land, when from 20s. to 40s. is 

 the capital value of many hundred thousand acres of the 

 best timber-lands in the Highlands, which could be made to 

 produce almost a like annual value, and rival if not excel 

 those of Germany. 



It is assumed under the Loan Policy that the State would 

 advance ^5 an acre for planting. At the same rate it could 

 both purchase and plant enough land to keep the Board of 

 Forestry busy for many years to come. It is urged that 

 State purchase would involve taking over mansions, farms, or 

 villages which the State does not need. That is so, but this 

 need not entail loss. Mansion-houses could be resold with 

 less land and could often be excluded from the transaction, 

 and so with farms and villages, where also the State and 

 local authorities could well conduct to the best advantage 

 popular experiments in small holdings. Then there is the 

 expedient of compulsory leasing by the State, as under the 

 English Land Bill, which is quite justifiable so long as the 

 security for the rent was sufficient to allow the lease to be 

 readily sold — for the objection to reviving hereditary entails 

 for owners is no less strong than that to continuing incapable 



