144 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of timber-trees. Unquestionably, extensive plantations would 

 give work to the rural population, and would bring great and 

 almost immediate advantage to agriculture, especially to stock- 

 raising, on wind-swept moors and hillsides ; and ultimately 

 the handling of the timber-crops and the timber itself, as a 

 raw material for many industries, would circulate a very large 

 total amount of money throughout the British Isles. It is on 

 these firmer economic realities, rather than on unreliable 

 forecasts and calculations, that any national scheme of 

 afforestation must be based ; and there can be little doubt that 

 with the world's constantly increasing demand for wood, and 

 constantly decreasing supply, well-formed plantations ought 

 to prove a sound and remunerative investment if made 

 prudently, and on a large scale. 



The Commission has quoted many examples of profitable 

 forestry in Britain ; but mention of dead failures seems to 

 have been deliberately suppressed. What of the Knockboy 

 plantations in Connemara, where ^10,000 was lost utterly 

 on a site upon which the planting experiment was foredoomed 

 to failure ? 



It may be urged that these calculations as to profit eighty 

 years hence are based upon German data ; but this presumes 

 that German physical and economic conditions are analogous 

 to our own, which is not the case.^ In Germany most of the 

 vast woodland tracts have been under forest from time 

 immemorial, have been under prudent management for 

 generations, and have for at least during the last sixty or 

 seventy years been worked with a scientific skill that we cannot 

 hope to attain at once. Moreover to plant bare, denuded 



^ About one-third of all the wood grown in Germany is required as fuel ; 

 and on all wood iiiiporled into any part of the empire there is an impost 

 duty varying from about ^d. a cubic foot (true contents) on wood of any 

 kind in the rough, up to 3id. a cubic foot, or los. per dozen pieces, for 

 wrought and manufactured wood. Now, even a id. a cul)ic foot for rough 

 poles and logs means about ;^io, 8s. 4d. an acre for an average 60-year old 

 conifer crop, besides also enabling thinnings to become profitable at an 

 earlier age than can possibly be the case in Britain. And 3id. a cubic foot, 

 or los. per dozen pieces, for wrought and manufactured wood, encourages 

 all timber working, transporting, and distributing industries in a way that is 

 impossible in Britain. And a saving of £/i„ 5s. 4d. an acre on the average 

 cost of planting waste land in Prussia, capitalised to 60 years, also gives an 

 enormous further advantage to the German results. 



