70 AFFORESTATION DURING THE WAR 



The Development Commission took the important 

 step of making a grant with which emergency seed 

 nurseries were started in the Crown woods in order 

 to raise and have ready a considerable number of 

 plants for use at the end of the war, when it was 

 confidently anticipated labour would be available 

 for putting them out. 1 Nurseries of this kind were 

 formed in the Forest of Dean, Windsor, New Forest, 

 and elsewhere. 



During the war the Commissioners continued to 

 carry on their investigations and deliberations on 

 the subject of the best method of carrying out a big 

 afforestation programme as soon as the peace 

 made such a programme feasible. As I propose to 

 deal with that subject in detail later on, it is unneces- 

 sary to do more than mention it here. 



It was thought at the time that a great oppor- 

 tunity of getting more planting done was lost when 

 the Home-Grown Timber Committee was appointed. 

 It would have been possible for Government to 

 insert a clause in the purchase contract that all 

 proprietors from whom they bought timber should 

 commence to replant the areas as soon as felled over, 

 a definite period within which the operation was to 

 take place being laid down. Such a rule exists in 

 many of the continental States. In many of these 

 cases it was thought that it would be no great 

 hardship, since the proprietors were receiving a 

 greatly enhanced price for their wood, which in many 



1 The present enormously enhanced price of planting stocks 

 in nurserymen's catalogues is evidence of the great value of 

 this step. E. P. S., March 1919. 



