CHAPTER XXII 



NATIONAL AND PUBLIC PARKS AND TREE PLANTING 



In a country like Great Britain, one of the best assets 

 of which is its natural beauty — a thing of value not only 

 to the natives but also to the many visitors who come 

 from the colonies and abroad— it is strange that the 

 question of great national parks has never arisen ; the 

 more so seeing that we have the finest opportunities for 

 securing them. Were our country like the plains of 

 the Danube or of Burgundy — levels rich in corn and 

 wine — it would be far less easy ; but vast tracts in the 

 British Isles are useless for agriculture or any kind of 

 industry. Stand among the mountains of Wales and 

 see their summits ranging one after the other like the 

 bare rounded masses of great elephants, and without 

 a tree upon them ! In Ireland there are beautiful but 

 bare ranges of mountains, often along a lovely sea- 

 shore, which might easily be secured for all time as 

 national parks. Whatever value they now possess for 

 agriculture, or for any local interest, they would afford 

 in no less degree as national parks, though the best way 

 to treat such places would be to leave them in their 

 natural state. There would be in this very little labour, 

 and certainly no ' laying out ' for public parks as we now 

 know them, so prosaic in design and so destructive of 

 beauty. England is richer than Wales, Scotland, or 

 Ireland in agricultural resources and in the value of its 

 land for residential usage, but even so it has vast 



