AGRICULTURE AND BRITISH FORESTRY 77 



It would be practically impossible to separate the moun- 

 tain from the arable land so completely as to enable the 

 one class to be entirely afforested and the other to remain 

 under agriculture. The straightening of boundaries, the 

 preservation of rights-of-way, water, etc., and the general 

 admixture of good and bad land prevailing in a country- 

 side, compel the person or public authority anxious to 

 obtain large compact areas to give and take in the matter 

 of quality, price, and area of land acquired. But the 

 average results need not necessarily deviate greatly from 

 those assumed. It may, of course, be contended that both 

 the gross and nett yields from afforestation have been 

 put far too low, and that the price per cubic foot, and 

 possibly the volume per acre, should be more in agree- 

 ment with returns given by many continental forests. 

 But reasons will be given in a later chapter which will 

 partly explain these points. As regards expenses, it is 

 possible that labour has been estimated rather above the 

 average of what is actually expended abroad, but there 

 natural regeneration plays a certain part which tends to 

 keep down expenditure in planting costs, and this process 

 cannot be relied upon to the same extent in a hill district 

 in Scotland lying at an average elevation of 800 or 900 feet 

 above sea-level. 



In practice, again, the temporary loss of rent and interest 

 on capital during the interval between planting, and an 

 adequate yield from the timber crop, has to be reckoned 

 with. In the course of a century or so this loss might 

 be made good and a higher yield obtained after the 

 first rotation had been taken off the ground, but for 

 the first fifty years or more no appreciable return need 

 be looked for. This unproductive period is a serious 

 drawback to forestry in practical economics, especially 

 when money must be safely invested on good security, 

 and it is a well-known fact that neither the large 



