BRITISH FORESTRY, PAST AND FUTURE 15 



sinking fund from the time that they are contracted. The 

 Development Commissioners have now offered to lend a 

 moderate amount of money to local authorities for the 

 purpose of afforestation chiefly of catchment areas of 

 water supplies the rate of interest to be 3 per cent., but 

 this, with repayment of capital, to be chargeable only when 

 the woods have reached a productive stage. Some work is 

 proceeding under this scheme in the upper reaches of the 

 Tweed and Clyde, and in North Wales, but as the arrange- 

 ment is not available for private landowners the results 

 cannot be great. 



As regards private owners, the Commissioners propose 

 that a Government Department should lease land on a 

 proceeds-sharing basis, no rent to be paid till the woods are 

 productive, when the proceeds would be divided ' according 

 to the proportion which the rental- value of the land bears 

 to the sum provided by the Government for afforestation 

 and maintenance '. In their Report for 1915 the Scottish 

 Board of Agriculture state that ' the response was been 

 small, and the trend of negotiations already undertaken 

 discloses some reluctance on the part of proprietors to 

 co-operate with the Board on the terms prescribed '. 



As an inducement to private afforestation some countries 

 exempt new woods from rating and taxation for a period of 

 twenty or thirty years. This aspect of the subject was con- 

 sidered by the British Committee of 1902, 1 by the Irish 

 Committee of 1908, 2 and by the Scottish Committee of 

 1911, 3 and vetoed by all. 



In certain Continental countries considerable stimulus is 

 given to the extension of private afforestation by the supply 

 free of charge, or at a low price, of young trees. Schwappach 

 reported in 1902 4 that Prussia was then distributing an- 

 nually about a hundred million trees for new plantations. 

 The Departments of Agriculture in Ireland and Canada 

 supply trees and shrubs free of charge for planting for 



1 p. 7. 2 p. 46. 3 p. 16. 



4 Report of British Committee, p. 211. 



