NATIONAL AFFORESTATION 



tioned that the cost of forming plantations 

 depended mainly on organisation, and that in 

 his own case the areas of afforested land had 

 given quite satisfactory returns at a low 

 cost of original outlay. Two plantations cost 

 2 12s. and 2 15s. respectively per acre. 



It should be remembered that all the above- 

 mentioned plantations were formed on bleak, 

 exposed moorlands the very class of waste 

 lands that I have so strongly advocated as the 

 woodlands of the future, and of which at the 

 present time there are about 15,000,000 acres 

 lying idle in various parts of the Kingdom. 

 Taking the cost of planting as 5 per acre, 

 this, with 2 5s. for cost of purchase and 

 5s. for incidental expenses, would bring the 

 initial total expenditure to 7 10s. per acre. 

 Elsewhere I have suggested that 1,000,000 

 acres should be planted over a period of 

 twenty-five years, at the rate of 40,000 acres 

 a year, which would be an outlay of 300,000 

 annually a small sum when compared with 

 the 45,000,000 expended each year by this 

 country on supplies brought from abroad. 



64 



