THE STATE AND PRIVATE OWNERS 



247 



a sound financial transaction, provided suitable species 

 are used for the particular soil and situation. All land, 

 whether farms or residential estates, increases in value 

 when sufficiently timbered, and no form of improvement 

 is more universal than the planting of shelter belts and 

 timber trees on estates which are being laid out for resi- 

 dential purposes. 



The most usual form, however, in which private enterprise 

 is found associated with forestry is that of the ordinary 

 estate woodland, of which some 3,000,000 acres exist in the 

 British Isles in individual woods, which vary from two or 

 three to several hundred acres in extent. This type of 

 wood is too well known to require describing, and has 

 been fully dealt with in another work,^ but the relation 

 between these woods and the State is a subject on which 

 much might be said. A reference to the following 

 table shows that private ownership of woods in all 

 countries is a common, and usually a prominent feature. 



OwNEESHiP OF Forest Areas in Percentages of 

 Total Areas in Principal European States 



1 English Edate Forestry. 



