THE PLANTING OF WASTE LAND FOR PROFIT. 259 
XXIV. The Planting of Waste Land for Profit. 
By Joun Nisbet, D.CKc. 
In view of recent publications, including papers read before 
this Society, no preamble seems necessary in the way of 
describing the national benefits ultimately obtainable from 
the formation of extensive timber-plantations to be managed 
on business principles. So far as economic considerations 
‘regarding the future are concerned, it seems to be the duty 
of the State to make adequate preparations and provisions 
for ensuring supplies of timber of home-growth; but, besides 
such direct action, something should also be done by the 
State to provide substantial encouragement to corporate bodies 
and private landowners who may be desirous of forming timber- 
plantations on portions of their estates. 
That extensive plantations, formed and worked on business 
principles, would serve a substantial purpose in the general 
development of the country is self-evident; but what, up to 
the present, seems to have received little attention from the 
different advocates of planting is that any such scheme of 
national utility should be properly based on broadly compre- 
hensive and systematic lines, capable of providing both for 
State-action and for the encouragement of private enterprise— 
because both of these cases can be provided for just as simply 
as either of them separately. Hence, as a practical contribution 
towards this important question, I wish to-day to consider the 
following points, as briefly as possible, in the hope that they 
may perhaps be found worthy of the attention of Government, 
because the recommendations about to be made deal specifically 
with the very important matters slurred over as “ Minor Con- 
siderations” in the Report of the Departmental Committee on 
Forestry, 1902 :— 
1. What scope is there for planting with profit on the waste 
lands in the United Kingdom ? 
2. What encouragement has the State hitherto given towards 
such planting ? 
3. Can we learn anything of practical use to us from what 
has been done in foreign countries ? 
1 Paper read at the Society of Arts on 24th January 1906, and reprinted by 
permission from the Journal of the Society of Arts for 26th January 1906, 
