126 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the timber is disposed of " in the rough " or is partially converted, 

 and so on. The census reports for 1901 show that 16,395 

 persons in the United Kingdom were returned as woodmen, and 

 if this figure be used as a divisor for the number of acres under 

 wood, 3,075,773, we get 187 as the number of acres allotted 

 to each man. But, interesting as this figure is, it is obvious 

 that it cannot be applied to our present purpose. A very large 

 proportion of our wooded area is held in such small portions — 

 say under 50 acres — that the owner does not keep a woodman, 

 while in the under-wood districts of England — chiefly the south- 

 east — the woods are often let to the agricultural tenants, who 

 do the cutting with ordinary farm labour. One gets a better 

 idea of the labour that land under wood can absorb, by 

 ascertaining the number of the forest staff on estates with a 

 large area of woodland. But in this country even this method 

 of inquiry will yield a figure that is not quite satisfactory, 

 inasmuch as the growing stock of timber in our woodlands is 

 almost invariably lower than it would be under good manage- 

 ment, and consequently the staff required is also somewhat 

 below the normal. 



" The most reliable data as regards labour are undoubtedly 

 furnished by the great State forests of France and Germany, 

 and there it is found that forest work, up to and including 

 the felling of the timber, requires the services or provides the 

 remuneration of one man to 75 to 100 acres. If these figures be 

 adopted, as they have been adopted in recent inquiries, 1 it 

 means that pastoral land converted to silviculture can maintain 

 a population ten to thirteen times as dense as that which 

 formerly occupied the ground. And this, of course, takes no 

 account of the further labour that is required for hauling the 

 timber, and for manipulating it in the sawmill, pulp factory, or 

 elsewhere. 



" I have indicated what is, approximately, the density of the 

 population that forest land can permanently maintain ; but 

 where the forests are first to create, a more immediate question 

 is : What amount of labour will be required during the stage of 

 sowing and planting ? The answer to this question also depends 

 on a variety of circumstances — the kind of ground, the species 

 of tree, the size of plant, the method of planting, and others — 



' Report of Royal Co»i»iissio>i, sect. 62-65. Report 0/ Committee of 1902, 

 sect. 9. 



