80 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



is the problem which really confronts the whole question 

 of hill aflforestation. The idea that suitable land in large 

 comjDact blocks can be obtained without interfering with 

 the present occupiers of such land is entirely unsound. 

 In certain districts there are large areas possibly in the 

 hands of one or two men, and the appropriation of such 

 land need not involve the displacement of many persons. 

 In other districts a few holdings, scattered over wide 

 stretches of more or less suitable land for planting, are 

 sufficient to block its conversion into forest, and these 

 must be bought out before anything is done. Given the 

 necessary compulsory powers, the acquisition of these two 

 types of land could be effected without unreasonable 

 trouble, but possibly not without considerable expense, 

 in the same way as large areas have been acquired in 

 England and Ireland for War Office purposes, or in Scot- 

 land for afforestation. It might, at any rate, be regarded 

 as well within the bounds of practical politics and econo- 

 mics, and by such means an area might be obtained of 

 possibly 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 acres, in individual blocks 

 of 500 acres or more in size, in Great Britain, which would 

 not involve the acquisition of useless land on the one hand 

 or valuable agricultural soil on the other. 



But to go beyond this area it is quite evident that a 

 much more drastic process of expropriation would have 

 to be adopted. However uneconomically estates may 

 have been managed in the past, there is no great amount 

 of evidence to prove that land of great value has been 

 allowed to remain idle and uncultivated, apart from parks, 

 ornamental woods, and deer forests of artificial origin. 

 The agricultural land of Great Britain as a whole is used 

 in the most economical manner possible under the existing 

 conditions of the market for agricultural produce. The 

 effect produced by the high price of wheat in the ' sixties ' 

 and 'seventies ' is a fair instance of the way in which British 



