50 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



invested in forestry, although this return may be deferred for 

 a length of time which takes it out of the reach of the 

 original investor. 



PROVISION OF THE NECESSARY CAPITAL. 



However profitable estate forestry may be in the long- 

 run, it has been clearly pointed out that it does not benefit 

 the individual who plants or improves his woods by replant- 

 ing. The average estate owner does, and always will, study 

 his own individual interests to an equal or greater extent 

 than that of the estate generally ; and it is perhaps only 

 natural that he should do so. In his capacity as life tenant 

 of an entailed estate, he is entitled to the proceeds or interest 

 which that estate yields annually or periodically, less the 

 cost of maintenance which is necessary to retain it in the 

 condition in which it was handed down to him. What this 

 condition is good, bad, or indifferent, as the case may be 

 depends not upon himself, of course, but upon his pre- 

 decessors, and it is a well-known fact that he is often in a 

 position which makes it extremely difficult for him to secure 

 that income which he is popularly supposed to obtain, and 

 at the same time set apart the necessary sum for the upkeep 

 and maintenance of the estate. 



A landowner who plants, therefore, on a large scale is 

 paying away money which he can, if he so chooses, put in 

 his own pocket, where it at any rate benefits his personal 

 interests to some extent or another. His inducements to 

 plant from a selfish point of view are consequently nil, and 

 we may take it for granted that a planting proprietor has a 

 certain surplus income over his immediate needs, or is 

 actuated by a public spirit which the British public do not 

 generally give him credit for. That " bloated aristocracy," 

 which figures so largely in the democratic mind, does not 

 exist in anything like the same degree as some would have 

 us believe. A landowner whose income is purely derived 

 from an agricultural estate has seldom more than enough to 

 keep up the dignity and position which the country gener- 

 ally expects him to do ; and when we ask such a man to 



