April ii, 1901] 



NA TURE 



565 



of different types of boilers from the point of view of war- 

 ship requirements. 



The Admirahy do not get much guidance from the 

 report, and we understand that they only intend to super- 

 sede the Belleville boilers by those of Babcock and 

 Wilcox and of the Yarrow types in a few vessels recently 

 ordered, for which the boilers have not yet been put in 

 hand. They had previously arranged for one of the recent 

 cruisers to be fitted with boilers of the Niclausse type. 

 The experiments recommended by the committee will 

 doubtless be carried out as quickly as possible, after 

 which there may be sufficient data available for deter- 

 mining the policy of the future. 



The committee's report is distinctly disappointing, and 

 suggests that their experience and judgment were not 

 sufficiently matured to give much value to an interim 

 statement. They seem to have been impressed by the 

 advantages of good water-tube boilers for naval purposes, 

 and to have realised that an ideal water-tube boiler — 

 which, however, has not yet been approached in practice 

 — would be much better for the Navy than the old 

 cylindrical boiler. When they have to choose the best 

 of the types that are available, they name four which 

 they have had under consideration and recommend 

 early experiments with them, and there they leave 

 the matter. Meanwhile, the construction of battleships 

 and their machinery must go on, and the Admiralty 

 engineers are in the difficult position of having to decide 

 upon the boilers for them. This task is not rendered 

 easier for the Admiralty in carrying on the work of the 

 Navy, nor is any one helped in forming an opinion upon 

 the best policy for the future by the fact that the 

 objections to the Belleville boiler which are pointed out 

 by the committee apply, in a greater or less degree, to 

 others that might be substituted for it. One thing that 

 appears certain is that whatever the defects of water- 

 tube boilers may be, or may be thought to be, their 

 advantages to a warship are sufficiently proved to make 

 a return to cylindrical boilers in the fighting navies of 

 the world extremely improbable. 



FORESTRY IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



T T is probably known to most people that for the supply 

 ■^ of our requirements in the matter of timber, as in 

 that of foodstufifs, we depend largely upon imports from 

 abroad. But it may be doubted if many beyond the 

 comparatively few who have given special attention to the 

 subject have realised the fact that the annual cost to 

 the country of these imports amounts to somewhere 

 about twenty-five millions of pounds. It has been often 

 urged that it would be worth some trouble to prevent 

 this large sum, or a portion of it, going out of the country, 

 and it has been pointed out that a proper system of 

 forest management would bring about this result. Of 

 course, so long as the foreign supply is ample and the 

 price of imported timber is less than that at which it is 

 profitably produced at home, our markets will continue 

 to absorb foreign produce as heretofore ; but these con- 

 ditions which have hitherto prevailed are, in the opinion 

 of experts, not likely to continue. For some years past 

 this and cognate questions have attracted considerable 

 attention, as witness the writings of recent date noted 

 below,^ all of which are deserving of careful perusal. 

 The burden of all of them may be summed up in the 

 phrase cited by a writer in the Times of March 17, 1899. 

 " ' Cotton,' it is said on the other side of the Atlantic, 



1 " Forest Management, with Suggestions for the Economic Treatment 

 of Woodlands in the British Isles" {Trans. Surveyors Inst., 1900); 

 "Canadian Trade with Great Britain" (Contetnfi. Review, Jan. 1900); 

 "British Forestry and its Prospects" {Trans. Roy. Scot. Artjor. Soc, 

 vol. xvi. pan II, 1900); " Deficient Production of Timber in the World" 

 {Trans. Eng. Arbor. Soc, vol. iv. part iii, 1900); "Outlook for the 

 World's Timber Supply." Report of a lecture by Dr. W. Schlich {Journal 

 of the Society of Arts, March i). 



NO. 1641, VOL. 63] 



' was once called king ; but King Cotton is a lesser poten- 

 tate than King Timber must soon become.'" In other 

 words, the world's demand for timber is outrunning the 

 supply under present methods, and an appreciation of 

 timber values is therefore setting in which is likely to 

 be permanent and progressive. Cheap timber is prob- 

 ably a thing of the past in this country. To some such 

 a declaration will only appeal as the old cry of " wolf," 

 and they may argue that any scarcity of timber will be 

 balanced by the substitution for it, in many cases, of other 

 suitable products ; and such substitution has, no doubt, 

 in the past taken place, as, for example, in shipbuilding. 

 But it must be remembered that facility of transport has 

 by now led to inroads into the world's timber capital in 

 practically every timber-producing region, and the ruth- 

 less destruction of virgin forest without attempt at re- 

 generation has brought us now within measurable distance 

 of the end of the natural supply ; and, further, in recent 

 years the applications of timber to other purposes than 

 those of construction, as, for example, in the manufacture 

 of wood-pulp, have made it an efficient substitute for 

 other products, and thus the demands for it have been 

 multiplied, and may be yet increased. In these circum- 

 stances, then, not from any sentimental ideas connected 

 with the growing of timber at home, but from the stand- 

 point of business principles, the question of the growing 

 of timber in Great Britain to an extent which shall in 

 some measure make us less dependent upon foreign 

 supply is one which has nowassumed practical importance. 



That wood can be profitably grown in Great Britain, 

 even under the unscientific methods now in operation, 

 has been amply proved ; that under a system of scientific 

 management crops of timber could be raised to yield a 

 certain and adequate return upon capital is demonstrable. 

 What lies at the bottom of the absence of such crops in this 

 country is want of appreciation, from land-owners down to 

 the working forester, of the right principles upon which they 

 can be grown. There is, speaking generally, no practice 

 of scientific forestry in Great Britain. Other immediate 

 causes there are which have contributed more or less to 

 the neglect of scientific forestry in Britain, for instance, 

 tenure of land, the claims of sport — this probably one of 

 the most influenlial factors — the rating of woods, and 

 so forth. These are obstacles, and no doubt will remain 

 so, in the way of tree-planting ; but assuredly were our 

 landed proprietors, land-agents and foresters better 

 instructed in the methods of growing timber and in the 

 possibilities of remunerative crops, less would be heard of 

 them as such. It is difficult to instil into those who have 

 been brought up in other traditions the fact that trees 

 which are to yield a crop of timber must be grown under 

 rules as definite as those which govern the cultivation of 

 ordinary agricultural crops, because the time which is re- 

 quired for the maturation of the crop and the securing of 

 the final yield exceeds the lifetime of the individual. 

 Yet it can only be when this fundamental fact has been 

 realised that a supply of marketable home-grown timber 

 will be available in Great Britain. 



There are not, it is gratifying to note, wanting indica- 

 tions that already some proprietors, even the Government, 

 are appreciating the necessity and the advantage of culti- 

 vating their woods upon rational lines. Working plans 

 for the economical management of woods have been pre- 

 pared and adopted upon estates of the Earl of Selborne 

 in Hampshire — of which an account will be found in the 

 Transactions of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society already cited — of the Duke of Bedford at 

 Woburn, of Mr. Munro Ferguson at Raith and Novar, 

 and in the Forest of Dean the Government has similarly 

 arranged a working plan. These working plans, which 

 are a novelty in the country, are worthy of study by those 

 who own woodlands, for they indicate the method which 

 ought to be followed upon every estate where it is de- 

 sired to grow wood for profit. Hitherto proprietors who 



