2 FORESTRY : WHAT IT MEANS TO THE NATION 



4,000,000 acres in England, 4,200,000 acres in Scotland, 

 700,000 in Wales, and 1,500,000 acres in Ireland. It 

 may be said at once that a considerable proportion of 

 this area is suitable for tree growth ; there are also 

 about 16,500,000 acres of mountain and heath land in 

 the two islands, part of which could be afforested. By 

 planting up a portion only of the suitable tracts a 

 large sum of money, which at present goes out of the 

 country to pay for timber imports which we could 

 grow ourselves, could be retained and be disbursed 

 amongst our own people. Some of our best blood 

 also, which up to the commencement of the great war 

 was emigrating, could find congenial employment at 

 home at the end of the war either in the woods or in 

 those industrial businesses and factories which arise 

 in the neighbourhood of wooded areas of sufficient size. 

 It will be asked why, with a great war on our hands, 

 worry about such problems as this one connected with 

 forestry, since up to the outbreak little had come of 

 the labours of various Commissions, that therefore 

 the matter could not have been considered, either by 

 the Government, the politician, or the economist, as 

 of vital importance in the interests of the nation. The 

 answer is to be found in the very fact of the incidence 

 of the war and the unprecedented effect it must have, 

 so far as the cheaper forms of timber are concerned, 

 on the timber markets of Europe, if not of the world. 

 Now, in these markets the United Kingdom up to 

 July 1914 unfortunately reigned supreme, so far as 

 our demand and our imports are in question, for' we 

 took approximately half of the total world's imports 

 of forest produce, 



