FORESTRY IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SCOTLAND. 1 65 



it puts the ground to a use many times more profitable. There 

 are estates in the county of Aberdeen where the woods bring 

 in a steady income of ;£i an acre/ while the adjoining ground, 

 just as fertile but unplanted, only brings in half a crown or less 

 for pasture — pasture which has to be equipped with expensive 

 buildings. In districts more remote it would be easy to name 

 cases where the difference was even more marked. And these 

 figures, please remember, tell only half the story. The woods 

 which bring in a revenue of ^^i an acre have already paid a 

 wages bill equal to los. an acre, while the unplanted ground 

 probably pays less than one-tenth of that amount in wages. 



Those who live in forest communities in France and Germany 

 enjoy a freedom and independence which accord well with the 

 taste of this generation. Only the head foresters and forest 

 guards and a few labourers are in the permanent service of 

 the forest. The rest are their own masters. They work in 

 the forest when they can — that is, when they are not busy 

 cultivating their own holdings. The work of the forest, of 

 which no branches except planting and nursery work are at 

 any season urgent, is timed to suit them. The urgent work 

 being light, is often done by women and children. Their 

 holdings and their houses are usually their own property. 

 Sometimes they work by the day, sometimes by contract. A 

 father and his sons, or a man with his brothers, or an enter- 

 prising man with a group of friends, will undertake a definite 

 piece of forest work, or the carting of forest produce. There 

 is no reason why the thing should not work out in the same 

 way in Scotland. Something very like it exists to-day in 

 districts where forest work is undertaken by crofters, and it 

 answers well. In reckoning the advantage to the State of 

 such communities, it must be remembered that the life and 

 the occupation in all its branches are as healthy as any to 

 which human labour can be turned. It is impossible to 

 imagine a better nursery of citizens. I do not think the same 

 can be said of purely agricultural and pastoral communities in 

 the Highlands. They are too poor. The life is healthy, 

 but it is too narrow, and offers too few opportunities and too 

 many spells of idleness. 



Hitherto we have been considering the simple case where 



^ This does not include the orginal cost of creation. If that is deducted at 

 compound interest the annual return per acre would probably not exceed 15s 



