AFFORESTATION. 1 63 



the trees have yet to grow before demonstration 

 can begin — but centrally situated, well-wooded estates 

 with plantations of various ages (not over-thinned) 

 containing suitable land for planting and timber 

 hmits due for felling, sufficient in size to give ex- 

 perience and education in administrative work, and 

 with large enough woodlands to combine practical 

 demonstration of approved methods with experiments 

 in new ones. 



(3) The establishment of a school, or schools, for foresters 



at, or in, the vicinity of the demonstration areas, 

 capable of turning out a supply of uniformly trained 

 foresters in sufficient numbers to control the State 

 forests' areas as they are planted. 



(4) The survey of mountain and heath lands of Great 



Britain and Ireland, the formation of schemes, 

 division into districts, and the appointment of 

 inspectors. 



(5) And finally, the scheduling and gradual afforestation of 



such blocks of poor " mountain and heath lands " 

 as can be planted to profit by the State, and 

 in which the unplantable area left on the hands of 

 the Commissioners does not represent an important 

 proportion of the whole subject taken. 

 It cannot be too strongly urged that until an Administrative 

 Department, necessarily selected for silvicultural knowledge, has 

 had experience in dealing with estate work and the many and 

 varied interests connected with land, the simpler the proposition 

 undertaken, and the less " moiling " with the affairs of tenants, 

 improvements, shootings, way-goings, etc., the greater the 

 probability of success. There is no royal road to successful 

 forestry, and only individual attention and unremitting care can 

 give the return the Erosion Commissioners so confidently anti- 

 cipate. 



Co-operation of State and Landowner. 



While in general agreement with the scheme of your anony- 

 mous correspondent (R.S.A.S. Transactio?is, Vol. XXI., p. 135) 

 as a necessary supplement to any plan of State afforestation, I 

 consider that there are certain relations in the work of co-operation 

 between State and landowner which require further definition, 



