AFFORESTATION. 157 



and the indiflference of succeeding Ministries did not teach 

 otherwise — that, if only as a prehminary measure to decide 

 whether or not State afforestation were within the bounds 

 of practical politics, a Forestry Board should be appointed 

 to prepare properly tabulated and ordered Information on 

 British silviculture, and above all to settle finally (i) what 

 is the total acreage of poor " mountain and heath land " in 

 Great Britain that will grow trees, and (2) what portion of 

 that area it is advisable in the interests of the general 

 community shall be afforested by the State. 



It is necessary to emphasise the importance of this double 

 line of inquiry, involving considerations from two separate 

 standpoints which in previous inquiries have not been clearly 

 defined. 



Of the land on which trees can be grown to a marketable 

 size, the practical forester is obviously the best judge. The 

 extent of that area that it is advisable to afforest lies equally 

 surely in the province of the economist. In the former case 

 suitability of soil, exposure, climatic conditions, aspect, drain- 

 age, etc., are the governing factors. In the latter the test 

 or standard must be (i) whether the economic subject, of 

 which the land to be planted forms part, can by afforestation 

 permanently maintain a larger and more prosperous population 

 on the soil, and (2) whether the subject so taken calf be 

 worked at a profit, or at all events without great loss, to 

 the State. 



Of the extent of ground in Great Britain which will produce 

 sizeable trees, we have had some interesting opinions which 

 may, but equally well may not, be correct. 



To ask a business nation to believe, however, that the pious 

 opinions of individuals who have experimented with a few 

 ten thousands of trees in a single county can be accepted as 

 affording material certainty as to whether 150,000 acres, that 

 is to say 600 million trees a year, can be planted in the whole 

 of Great Britain and Ireland and that for an 80-year period, 

 is to imagine that a contractor, asked to put in a tender for 

 the removal of the sand from the Sahara, could base his 

 calculations on the observations of the first statistically-minded 

 of Cook's Egyptian tourists. It may be argued that the total 

 acreage that will produce trees is a question of minor 

 importance, it being only a question of degree involving a 



