THE PLANTING OF WASTE LAND FOR PROFIT. 265 
of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry, because State-planting 
should certainly begin with and include the waste land in the 
ancient forests,! while (3) can also be just as efficiently, and 
probably at the same time perhaps a little more economically 
administered by the Board of Works and Public Buildings. 
Each of these two Boards is directly responsible to Parliament 
through a Minister, whereas the Commissioners of Woods and 
Forests are not directly represented in Parliament.2 Again, the 
Select (Parliamentary) Committee on Forestry, in their Report of 
1887, found itself compelled to call attention to the “unskilled 
management” of the Crown woodlands generally, and another 
Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the administration 
of this Department. Although this Committee of 1889 reported, 
in 1890, that it found the administration by the Commissioners 
of Woods and Forests satisfactory, this could no longer be the 
case if there is to be any great national movement towards 
planting waste lands for future profit, because the Crown woods, 
forests, and waste lands must be practically subject to the same 
management and control as any and all other plantations that 
may be formed by the State or with State aid. And already the 
Board of Agriculture performs the functions of the Land Com- 
missioners for England, and administers the Acts relating to the 
improvement of properties by limited owners (Settled Land Act, 
etc.; see below); hence common-sense, efficiency, and economy 
would all demand that the Crown woods and wastes should be 
treated in the same manner as State-acquired waste lands and 
State-aided plantations on land owned by municipalities, cor- 
porations, or private persons. 
With regard to Ireland, where special attention has long been urgently 
called for, provisions have been made under the Irish Land Act, 1903, for the 
acquisition of waste lands by the State with a view to planting, though this only 
applies to any estate ‘‘in the main agricultural or pastoral” (sect. 10), The 
authority for this is contained in sect. 4, as follows :— 
(1) In the case of the sale of an estate, advances under the Land Purchase 
Acts may be made for the purchase, by any trustees approved of by the Land 
1 As most of these wastes are burdened by rights to commonage of pasture, 
however, planting could only take place where such rights can be acquired by 
purchase—in terms of a special Expropriation Act, if necessary.—J. N. 
2 The Crown Lands Bill introduced during April 1906 proposes to give the 
President of the Board of Agriculture the option of sitting ex officio as a 
Commissioner of Woods, in order to have direct representation in the House 
of Commons. The Bill is to be much amended in Committee, however.—J. N. 
