368 Great Britain. 



land in crops and pasture comprises about 48 million 

 acres. The waste areas re-forested, it is believed, 

 could meet the consumption now supplied by impor- 

 tations. Notably in Scotland, extensive heaths and 

 moors of many hundred square miles in the Northern 

 Highlands and the Grampian mountains well wooded 

 in olden times, the woods having been eradicated 

 supposedly for strategic reasons are now without 

 farms or forests, and are mainly used for shooting 

 preserves. In the last thirty years, the land under 

 tillage has continuously decreased, and now repre- 

 sents less than 25 per cent, of the whole land area, 

 grasslands occupying 38 per cent. 



The agricultural land as well as the mountain and 

 heath lands, are to the largest extent owned by large 

 proprietors (in 1876, 11,000 persons owned 72 per 

 cent, of the total area of the British Islands). With 

 the exception of 67,000 acres of crownlands, the entire 

 forest area is owned privately, and that mostly by 

 large landed proprietors, there being no communal 

 ownership, except that the municipality of London 

 owns a forest area (Epping Forest) devoted to plea- 

 sure, and the Water Board of Liverpool has begun 

 to plant some of its catchment basins. 



Practically the entire wood supply is imported, and 

 the rate of importation is rapidly increasing. While 

 in 1864 it was 3.4 million tons, in 1892, 7.8 million 

 tons worth 92 million dollars; in 1899, 10 million 

 tons and 125 million dollars; in 1902, it had grown to 

 138 million dollars, and in 1906 to 141 million (700 

 million cubic feet) in which $7.4 million of wood 

 manufactures, against which an export of $19 million 



