THE VALUE OF WASTE LAND FOR AFFORESTATION PURPOSES. 163 
relative price rose above that of iron, while abundant coal 
supplies prevent a large proportion of the cheaper and inferior 
wood being turned to account as fuel. So far as Great Britain 
is concerned, anxiety on account of a timber famine seems a 
little premature, taking the fact into consideration that the 
countries from which most of our supplies are drawn, Canada, 
Scandinavia and Russia, have enormous areas of land which are 
intended by Nature for timber-growing, and that little or no 
inducement exists to turn them to any other purpose. But 
although a timber famine may be a thing of the remote future, 
it is quite possible that a considerable rise in the price of the 
better classes of timber may occur before many more years. 
This may be due to such causes as the increased cost of conver- 
sion and transit of foreign wood, the necessity for artificial 
rather than natural methods of reproduction, and the tendency 
to cut timber before the trees reach their maximum size, which 
is invariably the first effect of an increased demand. The first 
result of such a rise in price would be that other materials 
would be used for many purposes for which such timber is now 
employed, and that increased economy would be effected in the 
use of timber all round, which would react upon the price to 
some extent. We already see such agencies as these at work 
in the increased use of iron in building construction, railway 
sleepers, fences, telegraph poles, pit-props, and in hundreds of 
other directions ; while economy in its use is being exercised by 
preservative processes, such as creosoting, etc., which render 
young, immature trees as valuable as fully developed timber in 
its natural condition. But in spite of economy being exer- 
cised in these directions, it is practically certain that any 
considerable curtailment of the present imports of timber would 
result (assuming, of course, that the present consumption con- 
tinued) in a rapid rise in price of the better class of timber 
which cannot be produced in a short period, and for which 
substitutes cannot so readily be found. Whether this increase 
would be shared by the smaller classes of timber, which are now 
difficult to dispose of at any distance from a market, is another 
matter, but one which is of paramount importance in discussing 
the planting of waste land. As every practical forester knows, 
high and exposed ground can only produce a very small propor- 
tion of large trees, as compared with ground at lower elevations. 
At high elevations, larger areas of poor, thin soil exist, while 
