AS COMPARED WITH AX UNWOODKD. 13 



ficial results, why should steps be neglected at home, or investi- 

 gations as to the efficacy and value of such steps be overlooked 1 

 There are many tracts of land in Scotland which might be advan- 

 tageously planted up, and thereby, we cannot doubt, the capricious 

 rainfall be modified, and surrounding pastures and fields at higher 

 altitudes brought under the ploughshare. Doubtless in this respect 

 much, very much, has been already done, but still there remains a 

 considerable amount to reclaim, and an undue severity of climate to 

 improve, in many districts. Why is it that at the present day, in 

 Lanarkshire and Peeblesshire, and in other counties also at elevations 

 of 800 and 1200 feet above sea-level, noble specimens of many of 

 the recently introduced Abies Douglasii are to be seen 1 It is 

 entirely due to previous judiciously arranged plantations, having so 

 ameliorated the soil and climate that, interspersed with the native 

 fir or hardy spruce, we now see the Douglas pine vieing with 

 them in luxuriance. And if planting be so important, and plays so 

 prominent a part in those respects we have alluded to, we hold it 

 to be no less essential for the due distribution of rainfall throughout 

 the country, for to a great extent it is regulated by such local in- 

 fluences. Uut assuming, then, that for climatic purposes, a due 

 balance of acreage under wood is to be maintained in any country, 

 how is the precise amount of land to be so occupied to be ascer- 

 tained 1 This is a very difficult question to solve, and one requiring 

 much careful analysis of the separate individual recpiirements of 

 different countries and their capabilities. For instance, in one country, 

 whose necessity for wood as its staple of fuel, and whose consump- 

 tion of such may be an increasing one — as, for example, in Eussia — 

 a much larger area would be requisite, unless indeed rapid-growing 

 trees were planted as crop, and felled as they advanced in blocks 

 from year to year. Of course, the larger the body of land the 

 greater would be the amount essential for hygienic purposes, or 

 climatic balance. And again, the other necessities of the economy 

 of the country must be looked to, such as the area for food-produc- 

 ing or flesh-growing crops. Germany, for example, we find requires 

 fully 20 per cent, for agricultural purposes ; France in 1868 had 17 

 per cent, under wood, and for her own requirements this was found 

 much too small a proportion of plantation. To provide for equal 

 rainfall distribution, therefore, the mode that appears most feas- 

 ible and at the same time consistent (if it is found after sufficient 

 investigation, that a standing area of woodland is essential to the 

 welfare of any country), is for the Government, as in the case of 



