270 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



shape or form, and of the mixed stock of horses, cattle, 

 sheep, and pigs, formerly kept on the small holdings 

 Avhich have disappeared, is telling its tale in the spread 

 of bracken, heather, gorse, and other forms of useless 

 growth, and grass is being exterminated or losing its 

 value for feeding purposes. As time goes on sheep stocks 

 must decrease under such conditions, and the land will be 

 more easily obtained in large blocks for afforestation. 



Short of a return to the high prices for mutton 

 and wool, it is difficult to see how this trend of affairs 

 can be avoided, thus enabling forestry to advance 

 at the expense of stock-raising, and possibly to the 

 advantage of the country generally, as pointed out else- 

 where. In another direction it would also tend to re- 

 establish, in a small way, holdings on the better portions 

 of the land, owing to the increase in the working popula- 

 tion Avhich must accompany afforestation. The duty of 

 the State in these districts is clear, for none but the State 

 can afford the heavy initial outlay necessary to establish 

 forests on an adequate scale, or to place them on a 

 permanent footing. 



In more thickly populated and better utilised parts of 

 the country, the private owner must be depended upon 

 to do the greater part of the work connected with forestry 

 development, if it is done at all, but the State must 

 encourage and assist this work to a greater extent than 

 in the past if progress is to be made, and economic results 

 obtained. However enthusiastic the private owner may 

 be on forestry matters, only very occasionally will one be 

 found wealthy enough to ignore the sinking of two or 

 three thousands a year in planting operations, and in 

 mountainous districts a proprietor of an average estate 

 would require to spend at that rate to make adequate 

 progress. Whether he will do so or not, the future alone 

 can show. 



