NATIONAL AFFORESTATION 



in early life at least. There has in the past 

 been a great waste in pit- wood, quantities 

 that have been consigned to the charcoal- 

 maker and for firewood purposes being 

 eminently suitable for coal-mining work 

 generally. In the past there has been so 

 great a choice of pit-wood that buyers have 

 been dissatisfied with any other than that of 

 first quality, the second rate being, as a rule, 

 discarded. We have often thought, when 

 supplying excellent home-grown timber to our 

 larger collieries as pit-chocks, that wood of 

 first quality and sawn could well be replaced 

 by that of inferior growth and axe-squared in 

 the woodlands before delivery. But scarcity 

 will teach a lesson that it would have been 

 impossible otherwise to instil into the minds 

 of the average timber consumer. The coal- 

 production of the United Kingdom is roughly 

 250,000,000 tons per annum, and as the use 

 of 1 ton of timber is required for every 70 tons 

 raised, it will be seen that about 3,500,000 

 tons of pit-wood is every year consumed in 

 connection with the obtaining of our coal- 



