l6o TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Now on the Commission's own showing, it is clearly set 

 out that in the first forty years of afforestation there can be 

 little or no annual return from the woods on which rates can 

 be levied, and furthermore, that during these forty years the 

 rateable value of a very large number of sheep farms and 

 sporting properties will be adversely affected. With the 

 present incidence of local taxation, is it an exaggerated estimate 

 to make that in certain " favoured " parishes the public burdens 

 for owner and occupier might reach 15s. to 20s. in the pound? 

 The bald statement made in the Erosion Commission's Report 

 that rates had not been gone into, as it was expected they 

 would be more than met by sporting rents, may satisfy the 

 paper enthusiast ; but it can hardly be regarded with equal com- 

 placency by the average ratepayer. The feeling of anxiety 

 will not be diminished when the following naive confession is 

 considered : — " But their (the Commissioners) chief concern is 

 not with the permanent employment offered by long-established 

 forests, but with the temporary occupation that is associated 

 with the establishment of forests" (Erosion Commission Report, 

 Paragraph 68). 



I bring these facts forward in their nakedness not simply for 

 destructive criticism — I yield to no man in my belief in a 

 well-thought-out scheme of afforestation as a check to rural 

 depopulation — but rather to demonstrate that difficulties do 

 exist, and that they are not got over by merely avoiding 

 them. Enthusiasts in their optimism have wrecked many an 

 admirable scheme by looking only at the attractive side of the 

 picture, and timely criticism may sometimes obviate subsequent 

 opposition. 



If the facts I have put forward are correct, two general 

 principles directly follow: (i) That the plantable area of poor 

 "mountain and heath land" under 1000 or 1500 feet is not 

 necessarily co-terminous with the area that it is advisable, in 

 the interests of the body politic, to afforest; (2) That even of 

 that area of poor " mountain and heath land" that will " stand " 

 planting, a considerable portion, probably the greater, lies on 

 the border line between possible success and prospective 

 economic failure, and that it is only by the best management, 

 by the closest study of local conditions, and by a reduction 

 of the initial expenditure to a minimum, that satisfactory results 

 can be obtained. It is with these inherent difficulties in view 



