lOO TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



produce. At present, despite the incessant and increasing 

 demand for timber, the complaint is commonly heard from 

 British landowners that they cannot dispose of fine timber even 

 when it is offered. I saw not long since in the north of Ireland 

 a felling of several acres of superb Scots pine, about loo years 

 old, for which the owner had been unable to get more than 

 3s. 6d. a ton. Now a ton of mature Scots contains from 28 

 to 30 cubic feet ; so here was timber of the finest quality being 

 given away at i^d. a foot, which in a fair market should have 

 brought from 6d. to 8d. Transport was not the cause of 

 such an unsatisfactory price, for there are a railway station 

 and a seaport within two or three miles of this woodland, and 

 an excellent road to both. The real reason is not far to seek. 

 My friend had established no regular business connection, 

 without which no productive industry can be carried on at a 

 profit. Purchasers must have steady sources of supply ; they 

 cannot suit their requirements to the convenience of producers, 

 and the landowner who has 50 tons of timber to offer one 

 year, 5000 tons the next, and none in the third year, must 

 not expect to obtain good terms except by a lucky chance. 

 It is only from woodland managed on a fixed working-plan, 

 planted, grown, and felled in regular rotation, that a regular 

 annual quantity of timber, uniform in quality, can be put 

 upon the market; and until such a system prevails in the 

 United Kingdom, timber merchants will deal with those 

 countries where these conditions are fulfilled. 



It was stated in a former article that the German Empire,, 

 whence we used to draw considerable supplies of coniferous 

 timber, has now ceased to export it, requiring all she can 

 grow for her increased industrial wants. Owners of forest in 

 that country, where woodcraft has been practised on sound 

 economic principles longer and more extensively than any- 

 where else, have derived full advantage from the advance in 

 prices. 



The following Table, taken from Weber's Handbuch der 

 Forstwissenschaft (1903), shows the steady increase in the 

 revenue derived from the principal State forests during twenty 

 years. By far the greater part of the land under forest is either 

 mountainous, and otherwise wholly unproductive, or of such 

 poor, sandy soil as would hardly bear a rent of is. an acre. 



