50 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



doubt these woodlands will become a most valuable public 

 asset, at the same time creating a large field of employ- 

 ment and means of subsistence on now almost valueless 

 areas. The proposed department will, however, have to 

 be managed with the most rigid economy if it is to become 

 even a qualified commercial success; and the usual 

 British habit of staffing the higher grades expensively 

 and starving the lower will have to be discarded. At the 

 outset the idea of utilising any large number of the 

 unemployed in preparing the ground will not be feasible. 

 The most experienced and efficient labour available will 

 have to be used, otherwise the cost will be prohibitory. 



' Since the above was written, the writer has had the 

 opportunity of perusing the extract from the report of 

 the Royal Commission on this subject, and must say that 

 the financial proposals appear to be in the highest degree 

 unsound as far as they refer to the production of conifer- 

 ous timber. 



' The Commission proposes to plant or replant 150,000 

 acres annually, at an approximate cost of £2,000,000. No 

 data have been given apparently as to the average distance 

 of these 150,000 acres from the place of consumption, and 

 the whole question of the cost of transport appears to 

 have been treated very summarily, although it is vital to 

 the financial success of the scheme. Let us, however, 

 compare the cost of these replanted 150,000 acres with 

 the present value of a similar area in Sweden, situated 

 within five or six English miles of cleared and amortised 

 waterways, where the cost of getting the raw material to 

 the coast is less than the cost of fifty miles railway 

 carriage in the United Kingdom. In the Lower Gulf 

 districts of Sweden, answering to the above description, 

 the cost of a newly planted area of redwood (Pinus 

 sylvestris) or white wood (Picea excelsa) will be less than 

 £2, 10s. an English acre, whereas the cost of this replanted 



