38 AFFORESTATION IN SCOTLAND. 



his croft, his farm work and his work in the forest do not clash, 

 or at all events they can be arranged to fit in with each other. 

 Experience shows that his croft work keeps a crofter employed 

 for from 10 to 15 weeks ; and that, provided he can get some- 

 thing like 30-40 weeks' work in the forest, he can fill up any 

 unoccupied weeks in the autumn months (until he is required for 

 planting in the last week in October) by work at shooting lodges, 

 or by employment in connection with the tourist season, or as 

 a harvest hand on the large low-country farms. 



Number of Crofts. 



Forestry is an industry in which a large proportion of the 

 money expended goes in labour. The permanent staff, especially 

 during the planting stage, is neither numerous nor highly 

 salaried. Fencing material, and the cost of tools and seeds, are 

 the only payments made outside the forest area. 



It is therefore a- fair calculation to make, that for every 

 ^^40 per annum expended in forest work proper by the Forest 

 Authority, a worker — that is to say, one croft — can be estab- 

 lished. The ordinary forest labourer should draw about 

 i8s. a week. There should be work for one horse to every ten 

 labourers for forest carting work, and for another horse to 

 every four crofts for agricultural purposes. 



In nursery work, weeding, clearing plants, bracken switching, 

 carrying plants to worker.s, etc., one boy would be employed to 

 about every four men ; and a certain number of boys at about 

 9s. a week would be taken on as forest apprentices in every 

 block. 



Position of Croft. 



In the Fort Augustus Block twenty to thirty of the crofts would 

 be placed on the farm of Auchteraw, in the vicinity of the nursery, 

 and they should occupy the whole of the existing arable land, 

 with some 100 acres of imjirovable land on the golf course and 

 the east side of the low ground grazing. Outworkers would be 

 established at Borliuii, Aberchalder and Glen iVIoriston. As 

 far as possible their settlements would be formed in grou[)s or 

 townships with a view to : — 



{a) Arrangements for common grazing, thereby cutting 

 down ex[)enses in fencing ; 



