146 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



whose courtesy I owe these details, unfortunately did not state 

 the cost of the land acquired; but the planting at ;^2, 8s. per 

 acre is very different from the average of ^6, 13s. 4d. an acre, 

 which the Royal Commission considers necessary (see footnote 

 on page 144). 



The serious position of Britain with regard to timber is 

 perhaps hardly as yet realised generally. Apart from all other 

 timber, in 1907 our imports of rough-hewn pitwood came to 

 2,627,209 loads, valued at ^{,"3, 049, 484, while those of wood- 

 pulp came to 672,499 tons, valued at ;^3,3i2,347. These two 

 items alone amounted to ^^6, 361, 831, and exceeded in value 

 the similar imports of any previous year. To supply these 

 demands alone, without making' any provision for future 

 increase with increasing population, would need the annual 

 fall from about 3,000,000 acres of conifer and other wood- 

 lands — that is to say, an annual cut of about 60,000 acres of 

 woods worked with a 50-years' rotation, or of 50,000 acres 

 of woods worked on a 60-years' rotation. The satisfaction 

 of the future demands for pitwood is surely one of the most 

 important matters connected with afforestation in the United 

 Kingdom. It is probably only a question of time before the 

 large pitwood imports from the French State forests near 

 Bordeaux to Britain must fall off, owing to the increasing 

 demand for and the decreasing supplies of suitable wood for 

 the collieries in the interior of France. In coming years the 

 supply of pitwood to British coal mines is likely to cost more; 

 and whatever tends thus to raise the price of working coal 

 must at the same time influence all our industries dependent 

 on coal as part of their raw material for producing commercial 

 articles. The wood-pulp industry (hardly existing in Britain, 

 and only on foreign wood) is capable of enormous expansion, 

 given sufficient supplies of softwood ; and it is an indu.stry 

 that would spring up in rural districts wherever such raw 

 material could be supplied in large enough cjuantities. In 

 1904 mechanical wood-pulp cost in Britain 85s. a ton, in 1908 

 it rose to 120s. In America its price has been trebled in the 

 last ten years, and everywhere its value is bound to increase 

 greatly in the near future. Pulpwood thus differs from pitwood, 

 for even now fairly large supplies of wood that might well be 

 used in coal mines have little or no value in situ owing to the 

 cost of transjjort to the mining districts. 



