AGRICULTURE AND BRITISH FORESTRY 71 



coimtiy. Timber to the value of 10s. to 20s. per acre 

 can be produced on land of moderate fertility, and if the 

 climatic and soil conditions on this inferior third of the 

 agricultural area are up to the standard required to 

 produce timber to the value named, it would simply be 

 necessary for one industry to take the place of another 

 for the purpose of enabling an adequate extension of the 

 forest area of the country. 



When the distribution of this inferior land is con- 

 sidered, however, tosfether with its connection with the 

 cultivation of the more fertile ground adjoining it, it is 

 seen that difficulties exist in the way of a wholesale 

 transfer of poor pasture from agriculture to forestry. If 

 the poorer land formed a large and compact stretch, 

 which could be separated from the more fertile parts of 

 the country without any great change in the boundaries 

 of existing farms, or systems of agriculture, and from 

 which a given number of occupiers or owners could be 

 bought out at the market value of their land, the change 

 desired could be effected without serious difficulties other 

 than those connected with finance. But a glance at the 

 physical features of any mountainous country at once 

 reveals the fact that poor land is everywhere intersected 

 and split up by valleys and glens of good or comparatively 

 good soil, carrying a population and head of stock greatly 

 in excess of that found on an equal area of similar land 

 in districts of a more fertile nature. From an abstract 

 point of view this fact is of little consequence, as every 

 acre sufficiently fertile, and supporting a sufficient number 

 of persons or cattle, could be excluded from any scheme 

 of afforestation. But in practice the transfer of land on 

 such a purely economic basis is impossible. Commercial 

 forestry requires large unbroken areas, not merely in 

 one county or district, but comprised within a limited 

 boundary line. Small detached patches, while ])0ssibly 



