34 REVIVAL OF FORESTRY 



of Britain's 3,000,000 odd acres of woodlands, 

 the other 2-3 per cent, being the Crown woods 

 (Forest of Dean, Windsor, etc.). 



The attitude of the private proprietors of wood- 

 lands during this period is, at first sight, not 

 so easy to explain. Presumably, since they had 

 a portion of their capital sunk in the woods, they 

 should have had a first-hand interest in obtain- 

 ing the best return possible on this capital. But 

 the reverse was actually the case. The woods 

 were for the most part understocked and managed 

 on wrong lines. The material produced was rough, 

 heavy, knotty, and short in length. Colliery owners 

 did not care to take British pit wood, as the miners 

 refused to use it, preferring the clean-grown material 

 imported in quantities from abroad. British timber 

 was not in much better case. Government specifica- 

 tions for timber required by Government depart- 

 ments especially stipulated that British timber 

 (with the exception of some of our more valuable 

 hard woods) should not be used, owing to its inferior 

 character, due entirely to the methods upon which 

 it had been grown. For we have yet to see timber 

 which can beat British material for quality once it 

 is grown in the proper way. Added to these factors, 

 the woods were managed on very erratic and slip- 

 shod methods as regards fellings and replantings, 

 these important operations being carried out in a 

 haphazard fashion, as the will of the owner, estate 

 agent, or forester decreed at the moment. Timber 

 merchants of any standing consequently preferred to 

 confine their chief operations to foreign timber, owing 



