164 THE AFFORESTATION SCHEMES 



the scale upon which the operations should be carried 

 out, since the policy to be adopted and the advan- 

 tages to be gained would be better appreciated by 

 the public. 



Then we have the future timber supply question. 

 I have dealt with the next forty years. But in 

 timber matters we have to look further ahead than 

 that comparatively short period. It takes seventy 

 years or so to grow even coniferous timber. Under 

 the stress of war we had to get the material we 

 required, no matter what its price, and we were 

 made to pay for it. In 1915 and 1916 we threw 

 away in this fashion 37,000,000 more than its pre- 

 war value for the timber we imported. This sum 

 would have paid for a very fine afforestation scheme 

 if spent from 1885 onwards. 



And in the days to come, in the absence of the virgin 

 forests we have been drawing our supplies from in the 

 past, which will have been cut out, we shall have to 

 import planted or naturally regenerated timber grown 

 by man and pay the extra charges asked for it. We 

 shall be throwing away larger sums of money then. 



On the subject of the expenditure to be incurred 

 in planting schemes, Sir Alfred Ewing, Vice-Chan- 

 cellor of Edinburgh University, in introducing the 

 lecturer at the inaugural address delivered to the 

 iorestry students of the University in October 1918, 

 made the following apposite remark : 



' We are fighting this war and spending all this 

 money in the interests of our posterity. We should 

 face the expenditure on this afforestation question 

 in the same spirit." 



