THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE 81 



be required for ordinary estate workof which 

 repairs to buildings and fencing alone are important 

 items. Repairs of this kind have practically ceased 

 throughout the country for two to three years. 



The war has thrown a vivid light on our ignor- 

 ance of what forestry really means to a country. 

 It has shown that Commercial Forestry is a key 

 industry upon which a number of other industries 

 of importance to a nation are directly dependent, 

 both in times of peace and during war. That without 

 forests a nation in peace-time is at the mercy, both 

 as regards its requirements and the price it has to 

 pay, of the foreigner. In war-time it is in the 

 position we have been going through. 



If we carry out an afforestation scheme of sufficient 

 magnitude to give us a certain proportion of our 

 supplies in the future, we shall still have to wait, say 

 twenty-five to thirty-five years, for pit wood, and sixty 

 to seventy years for timber from our new forests. 



How are we going to procure our requirements 

 in the coniferous soft woods which form the bulk 

 of our demands during this period we may put it 

 at forty years for the next forty years ? Timber, 

 pit wood, pulp, these are three important and 

 necessary materials to our industries. 



The chief countries, if we omit for the moment 

 Russia, from which they have come to us during the 

 past half-century have reached, or are reaching, 

 the end of their virgin forests. Their exports must, 

 therefore, commence to drop in a not-distant future. 



Extensive as is our own Empire, its widely flung 

 forest areas, very valuable economically speaking, 



