8o TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



future, and how long it took to grow a log tree. With most 

 species in most localities nothing could be expected in less than 

 60 to 100 years. 



He had no cut and dried plan for this except to set every State 

 forester, State commission and forestry association thinking, to 

 make them realise that their business was not only to conserve 

 existing resources but to create new ones, and to recognise that 

 this was a more serious matter than could be met by the distribu- 

 tion of a few thousand trees to private planters; that it required 

 systematic procedure on a large scale. 



Each State forester should make a canvass of his State to 

 ascertain what lands could be left to private planting and what 

 to municipal or State enterprise. He should work out a plan 

 of State co-operation which might take the form, in the case of 

 municipalities, besides furnishing plant material and advice, of 

 pledging the State's superior credit for raising the necessary funds 

 by bond issues for acquiring and reforesting waste lands, and 

 in return securing supervisory power for the State. For New 

 England municipal action was perhaps the most promising, 

 although, in general, direct State control might be preferable. 



Dr Fernow gave the following example to illustrate the method 

 of procedure : — 



" Let us assume that a town has bought 5000 acres of waste 

 lands, which it could secure for say ^^3000, borrowing the 

 money from the State at 3 % ; the 5000 acres to be planted in a 

 25-year campaign ; that is at the rate of 200 acres per year, at a 

 cost of 32s. per acre; the annual outlay of ;;^32o to be furnished 

 by the State from year to year, when the interest charges will be 

 ^90 on the original investment and a series of interest payments 

 of ^g, 1 2S., increasing annually by ^^9, 1 2s. The loans will then, 

 in the twenty-fifth year, have accumulated to ^^11,000 and the 

 interest accumulations to £,S11^ or J[^2 1 5 per year, and the highest 

 last annual charge to ;^33o, amounts not difficult to raise. After 

 the planting is finished, the annual interest charge remains stable 

 at ^330. Now each year 200 acres may be thinned and every 

 five years the thinning repeated. A net result of 8s. per acre for 

 the first thinning (at that time wood prices will be higher), 12s. for 

 the second, and 14s. for every subsequent thinning would be a 

 reasonable assumption. In other words, for the first five years 

 after loans and planting have been completed the interest charges 

 are met to the extent of ^80, in the second quinquennium, to the 



