136 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



feet contour line in Great Britain is, in the first place, not 

 known. Ramsay^ estimated that the southern half of Scot- 

 land contained 1,920,000 acres above 1000 feet, while in 

 the Highlands of Scotland 280,000 acres were above 2000 

 feet. Estimates were made by the Board of Agriculture 

 and Fisheries, for the purposes of the Royal Commission 

 on Coast Erosion in 1909, of the land in Great Britain 

 above 1500 feet, which was computed as follows: — England, 

 549,335 acres ; Wales, 345,308 acres ; Scotland, 2,642,529 

 acres. In Ireland, a country much less mountainous 

 than Scotland, and probably not containing so much 

 mountain land as the south of that country alone, an 

 estimate of the land over 1000 feet amounted to 1,070,000 

 acres out of a total of 2,260,000 acres. Taking the entire 

 mountain land of the British Isles as 15,000,000 acres, it 

 can safely be reckoned that more than half is above that 

 line, while a great deal below it is equally unfit for 

 profitable afforestation. 



All reliable authorities agree, however, that 1000 or 

 1200 feet represents the upper limit of profitable afforesta- 

 tion. Witnesses before the Coast Erosion Commission 

 gave elevations varying from 1000 to 1500 feet, the latter 

 fiofure beinsf, in one instance, an isolated case referred to 

 elsewhere. Messrs. J. P. Robertson and Payne-Gallwey, 

 in their report on Derbyshire for the same Commission, 

 regarded land over 800 to 1200 feet as ' too high and 

 exposed for profitable planting.' Mr. J. F. Annand, 

 writing of Peeblesshire, probably one of the most suitable 

 counties in Scotland for afforestation, states : ' I don't 

 think you could go up successfully to 1200 feet with 

 Scots pine, but on suitable land larch and also spruce go up 

 quite well to 1200 feet.' Taking the average of wind-swept 

 and sheltered aspects, it is generally admitted that 1000 

 feet marks the line at which planting for profit must stop. 



1 Physical Geography and Geology of Great Britain. 



