250 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



of the Royal Commission on Coast Erosion was the ignor- 

 ing of this fact. A huge scheme for the State afforestation 

 of 9,000,000 acres of land was sketched out, but the part 

 which the private planter would be absolutely bound to 

 take, if that scheme ever reached fruition, was not even 

 referred to. The one agency is as necessary as the other, 

 unless modern economics are to be ignored altogether, 

 and land acquired quite independently of its agricultural 

 value, and the methods already employed for utilising it. 



The Departmental Committee on Irish Forestry clearly 

 recognised this point in their report, and calculated that 

 private woods in a country of small holdings, such as 

 Ireland, must constitute at least 60 to 75 per cent, 

 in any scheme of afforestation. Whatever the actual 

 proportion may be, however, it is evident that the more 

 divided the country, the greater the preponderance of 

 relatively small and isolated blocks; for whilst it is 

 comparatively easy for the State to acquire the entire 

 property of one landowner, it is very difficult for it to 

 take up a number of small properties in proximity to each 

 other, and form them into a compact block. In Great 

 Britain and Ireland private woods are likely to remain the 

 prevailing form of forest for many years, however energetic 

 the process of State afforestation may be. 



Until within recent years, however, practically no 

 assistance has been given to the private owner in improv- 

 ing and developing his woods. For a period of two 

 hundred years British forestry has been slowly evolving 

 from the primitive methods followed in the seventeenth 

 century into a practice rather than an art or an industry. 

 Customs and methods were founded on traditions, personal 

 ideas, and empiricism rather than collective experience and 

 logical deduction. As soon as the forest or the waste 

 ceased to become public property its management became 

 merely a matter of chance on the part of the owner, and 



