NATIONAL ASPECTS OF FORESTRY 23 



An important point to discover, however, is the possi- 

 bility or impossibility, as the case may be, of the non- 

 manufacturing or forest-owning countries continuing in 

 a position to supply the needs of their industrial neigh- 

 bours. Prophets are not wanting who predict a shrinkage 

 of imports at no distant date, but the probability is that 

 no one is in a position to state authoritatively that this 

 is inevitable. As regards the nominal forest area of 

 Europe, it has been shown that this is sufficient to meet 

 the domestic requirements of about four times the 

 existing population, assuming that not more than one- 

 third of the area is probably scrub or non-productive. 

 How far the industrial requirements of some half-dozen 

 countries are likely to increase it is impossible to say, 

 but various circumstances point to the probability that 

 they have reached their limit in a general way, and that 

 the excess consumption of timber over the normal quantity 

 used by agricultural communities will not exceed from 

 25,000,000 to 50,000,000 tons during the next half- 

 century. 



It is clear, therefore, that the nominal forest area of 

 Southern and Central Europe is sufficient to meet all 

 reasonable requirements, and that the excess production 

 of the more heavily timbered lands could, under proper 

 management, make good any deficiency elsewhere, except 

 in such countries as Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, 

 etc. Whether they can make good this deficiency in the 

 future depends very greatly upon the policies adopted 

 towards forest administration, organisation, protection, 

 and regeneration in the various countries comprised in 

 the area in question. At the present time, progressive 

 afforestation of available lands, and careful maintenance 

 of existing woodland are going on in Denmark, Ger- 

 many, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and to 

 some extent in Austria-Hungary, and other countries. 



