TREE-PLANTING BY THE STATE 



return is guaranteed by many mining and 

 other industrial companies that are financially 

 safe, attention will be directed to these rather 

 than to a project that is experimental, and 

 from which there can be no return for thirty 

 or forty years. The resources and continuity 

 of a nation will always make the State the best 

 custodian of forest property; indeed, only the 

 State can readily acquire the necessary land 

 on the most favourable terms and in sufficient 

 quantity for the purpose of extensive afforesta- 

 tion. Private individuals, or, indeed, public 

 bodies, labour under many disadvantages in 

 that respect, not the least, as before stated, 

 being the length of time required before the 

 money expended in planting can be even par- 

 tially repaid, while regularity of action and 

 large wooded areas are first necessities to 

 successful timber culture. The question of 

 national reafforestation has on several occa- 

 sions been exhaustively dealt with by the 

 writer and others during the past thirty years. 

 As early as 1883 I drew attention to the matter 

 in " Woods and Forests," and at later periods 



51 



