REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON FORESTRV. 1 23 



opinion, that there should be enough arable land to provide 

 small holdings ^ for labourers employed in the forest. 



As the time required to arrive at a complete working rotation 

 is a most important consideration, it is essential that the 

 woods in existence at the outset should include trees in as 

 many stages of growth as possible. 



The area should be acquired by purchase Its value for 

 demonstration purposes will steadily increase with the length 

 of its records. A lease, however long, presents an eventual 

 risk which, in our judgment, ought not to be run. 



Our inquiries do not lead us to expect that it will be possible 

 to find an area fulfilling all the above conditions. It will be 

 especially difficult to find a suitably stocked area near the centre 

 of Scotland. It may be necessary to choose between a forest 

 ideally central, which it will take fifty years to get into order, 

 and a forest less central but fit to be of service at once. If the 

 Government finds itself in this dilemma, we advise, provided 

 the less central forest is accessible by railway, that quality 

 should be preferred to situation. It is true that fifty years is a 

 short space in the life of a forest or a nation, but the fifty years 

 just coming are precisely the years in which demonstration is 

 most required and can effect most for the development of this 

 branch of our national resources. 



A forest to be of immediate service must possess two 

 qualifications— 



(i) The woods must be well stocked — real woods, not 



merely ground with trees on it. 

 (2) They must be fairly evenly distributed among the 

 various age-classes of the rotation which it is 

 proposed to adopt. 



We consider that these are the two paramount considerations 

 which should guide the Government in its choice of an area. 



2. Uses. — {a) The Demonstration Forest is intended to show 

 the growth and utilisation of timber, from the seed-bed to the 

 sawmill, on lines strictly scientific and commercial. It should 

 be possible to see every operation of silviculture conducted 

 there in the best and most economical manner, and to study 

 all that concerns the organisation and protection of a forest. 



^ The size of the holdings would necessarily vary with the character of 

 the district, but they should not in any case be so large as to become the 

 tenant's chief occupation and divert his periodical labour from the woods. 



