42 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



the Scottish Meteorological Society published a table of the 

 mean temperatures at Culloden, Inverness-shire, for every 

 month in the year, from 1841 to 1880, which quite corroborated 

 Mr. Thompson's figures. This table is much too long to 

 give here, and it may suffice to state that the mean mid-summer 

 temperature every ten years, for forty years, was only a few 

 degrees below sixty a temperature in excess of the growing 

 requirements of most forest trees, and almost as high as the 

 temperature in many parts of England, where the best timber 

 is produced. 



In Wales there are 181,610 acres of woods, in Ireland about 

 340,000 acres. 



Brown's " Forester," which, in its original form, has seen 

 several editions, the last issued in 1882, has been the generally 

 acknowledged exponent of British practice, and has been 

 followed unquestioningly, both in precept and practice, by 

 foresters, as our forest literature and our woods show conclu- 

 sively. Where Brown derived his ideas of practical forestry 

 from, such as they are, may be gathered from a perusal of the 

 works of the older and better-known English and Scotch 

 writers who preceded him. His " glances " at the forests of 

 Europe, outside his own country, are vague, general and brief, 

 and show that he drew no inspiration from that quarter, 

 although he did profess to deal with the forestry of the 

 four quarters of the globe down to the issue of his last edition 

 in 1882. His silence on the forestry methods of Germany 

 and France, carried on on well-established principles during 

 his time, seem to indicate an almost total unacquaintance with 

 the subject, and an entire ignorance of the fact that in these 

 countries timber culture was practised successfully on principles 

 diametrically opposed to his. It can hardly be credited that, 

 had he known anything of the complete forestry system 

 already established in the countries named and elsewhere, he 

 would have ventured to suggest the necessity of an improved 

 system of forestry for the whole world, especially for European 

 States, which he does do (pp. 8 36). Throughout Brown's 

 writings one sees evidence that he viewed forestry not so much 

 from an industrial and financial as from an artificial, cultural 

 point of view, and did not realise the possibilities of the home 

 timber trade, the nature of the demand, nor the extent of the 

 competition from abroad. 



Forestry in this country, as a commercial industry, will 

 always be ruled by the timber trade and the nature of the 

 demand a fact which planters must keep in mind in the 



