134 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARIJORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



it requires buildings and fences, tile drainage, and the stones 

 removed. You could, I think, make that land into fair second- 

 class arable land, and you could possibly get a rent of i2S. per 

 acre for it eventually. But you can only do this after a very 

 large expenditure, of not less than jr^\2 or ,^15 per acre, and 

 it is very doubtful whether that money would be profitably 

 spent unless it was obtainable at something like ai or 3 per 

 cent. If you had to pay 5 per cent, it would not be possible to 

 get an economic rent for that land, and I am inclined to think 

 that such land would, in most cases, be better planted than 

 turned into agricultural land, because the amount of capital 

 you require to make it produce a gross return of say 30s. to 40s. 

 per acre, which I think is not an unreasonable return for 

 forestry, is very much less than the capital required to make 

 it produce say ^3 or ^^4 an acre from agriculture. In one 

 case you have an initial capital outlay of ^15, and in 

 the other an initial capital outlay of about J[^\. From a 

 national and an economic point of view it is desirable that at 

 least a part of that class of land should be planted. There 

 are some people who consider that it ought to be turned into 

 agricultural land, and this might be done to some extent, but 

 I think it would be a mistake if too much of such land were 

 withheld from forestry, for which it is well suited." 



Mr Gordon said : — " I was very interested to hear Mr Gammell 

 take the view that the question of labour was of essential 

 importance when considering the relation of forestry to 

 agriculture. Personally I am of the opinion that a scheme 

 of afforestation must in any country form the backbone of an 

 economic system of small holdings, because of the amount and 

 nature of the labour it supplies. 



" We have many concrete examples of an almost ideal relation- 

 ship existing between forest and croft-land in many parts of 

 the continent of Europe. The crofter may be employed in the 

 forest for six to eight months, and in such districts about half 

 the total population may be largely dependent on the forest. 

 The conditions of this employment are very favourable, since 

 the crofters are in no way bound by contract with the forest 

 authority, and are therefore able to give their holdings all the 

 attention they require. 



" Irrespective of the labour employed actually in forest 

 operations there are other forms of labour which specially suit 



