FORESTRY IN SOME OF ITS ECONOMIC ASPECTS. I 23 



imported wood products which amount to nearly ;^i 7,000,000 : 

 and observes that, although we, of all nations, are the most 

 dependent on foreign supplies to meet our timber requirements, 

 several other countries are also large importers of this commodity, 

 the largest being Germany, the United States, France, Belgium, 

 and Italy, while the largest exporters are the United States, 

 Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Canada. Dr Somerville disclaims 

 any intention of showing, or even suggesting, by means of the 

 figures given in his tables, that we, in this country, could ever 

 hope to become self-supporting in the matter of timber and 

 timber products. He continues : — 



" A large proportion of our imports reach us from tropical 

 and sub-tropical climates, but, on the other hand, the bulk of 

 our supplies have been produced in temperate countries. If we 

 exclude the United States, which sends to us, amongst other 

 woods, pitch pine, a tree that demands for its growth a higher 

 range of temperature than these Islands can show, and confine 

 ourselves to countries which for the most part have a climate not 

 unlike our own, we find that from such countries we draw about 

 two-thirds (8,500,000 loads) of our timber imports, paying for 

 them roughly about ^20,000,000 annually. On the assumption 

 of an annual increment of about one load per acre, it would 

 take some 9,000,000 acres of forest to give a sustained yield 

 of this amount, and if the recommendations of the Royal 

 Commission are given effect to I do not doubt that eighty years 

 hence we should be producing this yield. Whether the area 

 be 9,000,000 or whether the alternative scheme, involving 

 6,000,000 acres, be adopted, the land has got to be found, and 

 it is evident that no such area of " waste " ground exists in this 

 country. Clearly, extension of silviculture in this country must 

 be associated with displacement of food and with disturbance 

 of population. As regards the former, it may be said that even 

 the most enthusiastic advocate of extended silviculture does not 

 suggest that good arable land should be planted. Woods, as 

 is well known, show good growth on land of low agricultural and 

 pastoral value, provided the altitude be not too great. This is 

 due to two reasons ; the first, that wood removes from the soil 

 relatively little plant food, and the second, that many trees thrive 

 well, in fact some thrive best, where the rainfall is so heavy as 

 to make tillage farming impossible, and even pastoral farming 

 difficult. 



