148 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



recommends, three main points have to be taken into 

 consideration : — 



1. Money. 



2. Land. 



3. Labour and Supervision. 



1. Money. — With regard to providing funds no suggestion 

 whatever has been made. With an enormous deficit to face, 

 the Treasury cannot possibly grant funds for such a vast and 

 not immediately profitable investment. Probably the only way 

 in which money can be raised as required will be to form a 

 " National Afforestation Fund " by issuing guaranteed 2| per 

 cent, stock for the amount needed during each of the next sixty 

 years while planting continues. But why not here look towards 

 Prussia for light and guidance ? Parts of the Grunewald Forest, 

 near Berlin, have risen greatly in value, and portions of this are 

 being sold, in order to buy big stretches of waste land for 

 afforesting and planting. Now, the ^561,000 a year at present 

 being raked into the coffers of the Commissioners of Woods, 

 Forests, and Land Revenues of the Crown are mainly obtained 

 from London house and office property ; and as the hundred- 

 year leases are now falling in, these most valuable properties 

 can easily be sold to provide many millions of pounds sterling 

 for the afforestation and planting of waste lands and poor 

 pastures, if the Treasury approve and authorise such a course 

 being taken. 



2. Land. — The Commission estimated that 6,000,000 acres of 

 suitable land are obtainable in Scotland, 2,500,000 acres in 

 England and Wales, and at least 500,000 acres in Ireland, 

 making 9,000,000 acres in all. But the land area of Scotland 

 is only 19,069,770 acres, while that of Ireland is 20,327,947 

 acres ; and to suppoj^e that there is about twelve times as 

 much plantable land in Scotland as in Ireland is incorrect, 

 while it is equally wrong to imagine that nearly one-third 

 of the total area of Scotland is plantable with profit. Over 

 3I million acres are above the 1500 feet contour; and to 

 assert that nearly two-fifths of all the rest is waste land or poor 

 pasture plantable with profit must seem strange to those well 

 acquainted with the Scottish hills and moors. Even in the 

 most favoured localities timber-growing can seldom prove 

 profitable as high as 1000 feet; and if all the land above that 

 elevation be subtracted, then it will probably be found that 



