CHAP, i.] Forestry in Britain 9 



wood and labour are comparatively very cheap. But surely what- 

 ever oak-bark is required by tanners might quite easily be grown 

 at home on vacant land along the railway lines in the vicinity 

 of the centres consuming it, so as to undersell foreign imports 

 which incur costs of repeated handling and transport before 

 reaching us. New sources of employment might thus easily 

 be created and developed for many thousands of people, 

 especially during the early spring, and partly also in the winter 

 months. 



To confine this statement to the practically useful, there is 

 little doubt that if any encouragement were given to the dis- 

 semination of sound knowledge concerning forestry through- 

 out Great Britain, we should not only be able to obtain better 

 returns materially, technically, and financially from the exist- 

 ing woodlands, but should also in other respects be in a much 

 better position for profitably utilizing some of the existing waste 

 lands for the purpose of entering into direct competition later 

 on with these foreign imports, consisting chiefly of coniferous 

 species of timber ; for these trees can attain as fine development 

 as on the continent of Europe, and often finer, especially in 

 Scotland. There is indeed no climatic reason why a very con- 

 siderable portion of the timber now annually imported from 

 Russia, Scandinavia, and Germany, should not in future be 

 supplied of home growth, when once the crops raised have 

 been subjected to rational treatment from the time of their 

 formation onwards until their maturity. This latter condition 

 is essential ; for woods that are crowded at thirty, forty, or fifty 

 years of age, may not have been of sufficient or normal 

 density at ten or fifteen years of age, but may have become 

 crowded in canopy through excessive and uneconomical rami- 

 fication and coronal development. 



From the Minutes of Evidence (pp. 4, 5, and 42) accom- 

 panying the Report of the Select Committee on the Adminis- 

 tration of the Department of Woods and Forests and Land 

 Revenues of the Crown, submitted to the House of Commons 



