NATIONAL AFFORESTATION 



stock, especially on exposed ground, improving 

 the agricultural value of the surrounding lands, 

 and clothing and ornamenting our barren 

 commons and hill-sides, plantations will be 

 found of the utmost importance; indeed, their 

 value in such ways can hardly be over- 

 estimated. Cases are numerous in which 

 grazing land in the vicinity of recently formed 

 plantations has increased in value from 2s. 6d. 

 to 10s. per acre, and in one instance that has 

 been brought to our notice exposed land that 

 previous to the formation of plantations in 

 its vicinity was rented at less than a shilling 

 per acre now gives a return of twelve times 

 that amount. On the Seafield Estate, in 

 Scotland, the pastures adjoining forest land 

 now let at a much higher rental per acre than 

 was got for the ground before it was planted, 

 because these plantations give shelter to the 

 sheep farms around, particularly in the winter 

 weather. 



Twenty years ago I formed a plantation on 

 a spur of the Snowdon range of hills, in Wales, 

 where the fierce, long-continued, and hard- 



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