RECLAMATION OF WASTE LAND, 437 



tion of much property below, and leaving the rocks bare 

 of scrub or herbage above. Also, where there is an apology 

 for forest, the indiscriminate browsing of cattle prevents 

 its healthy growth, without yielding the cattle an equivalent 

 in food. Nor yet have we land to compare to the sandy- 

 moist landes of the Gironde, in which French foresters 

 have of late, following the example of the famous Bremontier 

 and Chambrelent — in whose footsteps now M. Descombes 

 is successfully treading — developed a most vigorous and 

 instructive activity, to the benefit of the country. In 

 Germany, on the other hand, such mountain chains as the 

 Sileso-Bohemian Riesengehirge, the Harz, the Black Forest, 

 the Fichtelgebirge and others may well suggest useful lessons 

 for our Scottish bare rocks. 



Then there is the question of private property, which in 

 our case will have to play a conspicuous part in the solution 

 of the waste land problem. For, buy the State — to which 

 hitherto appeals have been exclusively addressed — what 

 it will, it cannot dispossess all our squires owning wood- 

 land, and their comparatively small areas, in which the 

 owners will always desire to give as much consideration to 

 picturesque appearance as to financial gain, are scarcely 

 suitable for State administration. In France most of the 

 forests that we admire are the property of the State. And 

 State management of forests is comparatively easy. Ger- 

 many abounds in State forests — possessing much more than 

 France — wide sweeps that extend from the centre of the 

 empire to the frontier of Russia. But it is also the home 

 of all others, by the side of Switzerland, of well-kept private 

 forests. The country is cut up in the main into what we here 

 must consider very moderate- sized estates — estates corre- 

 sponding to those which the late Lord Sidney Godolphin 

 Osborne desired to see established inlthis country, when 

 he pleaded for the substitution of " £2,000 a year squires " 

 for our overgrown landlords. And most of those estates 

 have their allowance of forest. There are also very large 

 specifically forest estates — estates ranging up to 40 or 50 

 square miles. And every owner of an agricultural estate 

 affects to be, and desires to rank as, at any rate an amateur 



