14 BRITISH FORESTRY, PAST AND FUTURE 



will be otherwise in the future. The returns from forestry, 

 as gauged by interest on capital, are never attractive as 

 compared with those secured in business or even in agri- 

 culture. Moreover, they accrue so slowly that the planter 

 rarely lives to reap his crop. Then again, it is to be remem- 

 bered that the extension of afforestation on a private estate 

 affects the owner in two ways. In the first place he sacrifices 

 the income that he has hitherto received for grazing ; and 

 in the second, he has to find capital, often greater than the 

 freehold value of the land, which will be locked up for at 

 least half a century. 



These considerations are so self-evident that they have 

 been universally recognized, and various proposals have 

 been put forward to bridge the difficulties. A system of 

 loans has been suggested, and, in fact, has long existed in 

 this country in connexion with the Improvement of Land 

 Acts, but so unattractive have they proved that in the 

 sixty- eight years ending with 1914 the aggregate of the 

 sums borrowed in Great Britain for planting only amounted 

 to 109,475, and in the last three years no more than 928 

 was so borrowed. 1 In Ireland between 1866 and 1907 loans 

 from the Board of Works for the same purpose totalled 

 33,600. 2 Most of this money was expended on planting 

 for shelter, the rate of interest being about 3J per cent., 

 with an additional 1 per cent, or thereby for repayment of 

 the capital in thirty-five years. The effects of these loans 

 on afforestation have been practically negligible. The ex- 

 perience of other countries has been precisely similar. Pro- 

 fessor Schwappach reviewed the whole subject in a report 

 to the Departmental Committee of 1902, 3 where it is pointed 

 out that State loans, associated as they necessarily are 

 with official supervision, are rarely taken advantage of. 



Loans in the past, in this and other countries, have 

 always carried interest and an annual contribution to a 



1 Board of Agriculture Report (Cd. 7851), 1915, p. 217. 



2 Irish Forestry Committee Report, Appendix 11. 



3 Appendix XXV. 



