REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 51 



British land will be about £13, 6s. 8d. ! Let us give 

 another example. There is at present a forest estate for 

 sale in the Lower GuLf district of Sweden, situated within 

 almost a ring fence, about twenty- five English miles from 

 a good harbour on the Gulf of Bothnia, and with a line of 

 railway almost running through the estate, at a price 

 of £2, 5s. 9d. per English acre. This estate contains 

 about 11,000 acres, well covered with red and white wood 

 (mostly red) of first-rate quality, where the average age of 

 the trees is probably over twenty-five years, with a 

 sprinkling of sawable logs. The cost of carrying the 

 produce of this property to the harbour on the Gulf of 

 Bothnia by rail is about Is. 6d. per ton, the cost of putting 

 the goods from the railway truck on board ship is about 

 4s. 6d. per Petersburg standard hundred, and the cost of 

 freight to London is not more at present than 21s. per 

 Petersburg standard hundred. If your readers compare 

 the proposal of the Royal Commission financially with 

 current values in any European wood-exporting country 

 they cannot but see its absurdity as far as coniferous 

 wood is concerned, and there is at least one gentleman 

 who gave evidence before this Commission who would 

 decidedly not give £500,000 for what the Conniiission 

 propose to spend £2,000,000 on ! As a matter of fact, 

 there is scarcely one firm in Sweden that would not sell 

 its whole forest property for less than £2,000,000, and 

 half a dozen of the Swedish companies own a good deal 

 more than 500,000 acres of woods in full bearing condi- 

 tion, with an average growth of over fifty years.' 



In connection with the total area of woodland needed 

 for any country, the question of ownership becomes an 

 important one. At the present time, the various States 

 of Europe own about 50 per cent, of the total forest area, 

 while communes, corporate and ecclesiastical bodies, etc., 

 own about 16 per cent. At a rough estimate, there- 



