144 TKAXSACTIOXS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH AK I'.ORICULTUR AL SOCIETY. 



woods which received it were managed on lines approved by 

 the State. It would, therefore, afford a powerful lever for good 

 management. It would only involve a fraction of the capital 

 required for the purchase of land and creation of State forests, 

 while the cost of inspection would be very much less than that 

 of direct management. 



The exemption of newly afforested land from local rates for 

 varying periods is not unusual on the Continent.^ In Scotland 

 all plantations are liable to assessment from the date of forma- 

 tion, and the rates are levied upon the actual annual arable or 

 pastoral value of the land throughout the whole life of the crop. 

 The fact that the rates have to be paid over an unproductive 

 period of fifteen years and upwards does certainly, in some 

 cases, deter people from making new plantations, but we believe 

 that the burden is not an unreasonable one. 



Some evidence with regard to loans, death duties and rates 

 has been taken by previous Commissions on Forestry, but none 

 of these has arrived at any positive conclusion on the subject, 

 with the exception of the Irish Committee of 1907, whose 

 report advocates an extension of the system of loans previously 

 in operation in Ireland. We ourselves have not considered 

 it our duty to examine witnesses upon these matters, and we 

 recognise that, without more inquiry than we have been able 

 to bestow upon the questions involved, we should not be justified 

 in venturing upon specific recommendations. We are satisfied, 

 however, that each of the measures which we have suggested for 

 the encouragement of private forestry deserves to be made the 

 subject of definite inquiry, and we strongly recommend that such 

 inquiry should be instituted by the Government without delay. 



Another form of inquiry which is beyond our scope, but 

 which ought, in our opinion, to be immediately undertaken, 

 is to obtain accurate returns as to the [)resent extent of private 

 woodlands. According to returns collected by the Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries in r905,- the area of woodlands in 

 Scotland was then 868,409 acres. There can be little doubt 

 that changes since that date have been in the direction of 

 deforestation. In central Perthshire, Strathdon, and some 



' See 'J'ransaclions of tlir Royal Scottish Ayhoricultural Society, vol. xxiv., 

 part ii., article on ''The Slate and Privalt: Woodlands," by William Dawson, 

 p. 125. 



-' See note to map of woodlands, Appendi.x i. 



