I44 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
protection from fire, grazing, etc., prevent the development 
of large areas of satisfactory woodland, and few attempts are 
made at present to turn this class of land to account, unless 
it happens to lie in the centre of a large estate. 
In the north, the utility of most of the heath-covered waste 
for grouse moors and the grazing of black-faced sheep has 
invested it with a certain value which may vary from Is. to 
3s. 6d. per acre, according to its situation and capabilities. 
In most cases, therefore, we find that this land is either laid 
out in large enclosures, carrying a stock of from one to two 
sheep per acre during the summer months, or where the land 
rises to high elevations, or the surface is covered with deep 
peat or is bare of surface-soil, is given over entirely to grouse. 
In any case, we are dealing with a class of land which is 
practically in its unimproved condition, and which will not im- 
prove in fertility and is not likely to improve in value unless given 
artificial assistance. At the present time this artificial assistance 
is not readily given by those most intimately connected with it. 
Thorough drainage and artificial manuring would doubtless 
effect an improvement in this class of land, but whether this 
improvement would be accompanied by an adequate increase 
in its value either to the owner or occupier is another thing. 
Only the hardiest breeds, such as black-faced sheep and 
Highland cattle, are able to thrive on land of this description, 
and the latter, at any rate, have never been regarded as 
profitable sources of income to the ordinary farmer. We 
may, then, take it for granted that neither the existing nor 
the prospective values of mountain land for agricultural 
purposes are likely to increase, nor are its possibilities sufficient 
to encourage reclamation on an extensive scale. 
VALUE OF WASTE LAND FOR PLANTING. 
The question which concerns us most closely as foresters, 
however, is the one which has been chosen for the title of this 
paper, and which has attracted the attention of rural economists 
to a considerable extent of late years. It has also been brought 
more prominently to the front by the social condition of a large 
proportion of the working classes bringing the question of 
employment in rural districts into the field of political inquiry. 
Enthusiasts draw glowing pictures of our now bare hill-sides 
