CHAP. I.] 



Forestry in Britain 



ii 



' The arable land, as has been the case in every year but two since 1872, 

 again shows a reduction. The surface appearing in this category is 

 157,000 acres less than in 1891. The permanent pasture in 1892 is also less 

 than that returned in 1891 by 76,000 acres. This is a change in an 

 opposite direction to those recorded for a considerable period, but it is 

 wholly explained by a stricter definition of the term Permanent Grass 

 now enforced in certain mountainous counties, where some of the 

 additions made in 1891 to this category were found on closer inquiry 

 not to have been fully justified, the areas in question being again 

 relegated to the class to which they properly belonged, of uncultivated 

 hill grass 



' Between 1872 and 1882 about 936,000 acres were apparently with- 

 drawn from arable tillage and reappeared in the opposite category of the 

 cultivated area in the form of permanent pasture. 



' In the later ten years a similar process has continued. Between 1882 

 and 1892 the arable area has again diminished, and this time by 

 1,165,000 acres. . . . The more important alterations between 1891 and 

 1892, occurring in the entire United Kingdom, may be summarized in 

 the accompanying Table : 



Owing to the gradual agricultural depression, the poorer 

 classes of arable soil have during the last twenty years gone 

 out of plough cultivation, and have been transformed into 

 pastures; and the immediate consequences of the past year 

 or two must inevitably result in the poorer classes of pasture 

 being ultimately planted up again, thus reverting into some- 

 thing of their original state, as sylviculture will probably hold 

 out better hope of some profitable return from the land than 

 any agricultural or pastoral utilization of the soil \ 



1 During September 1893 tne Board of Agriculture drew the attention of 

 landowners to the increased facilities for the planting of woods and trees in 



