AFFORESTATION OF CATCHMENT AREAS 79 
carry out the work on the only lines that would ensure 
success, namely, the planting to be spread over a term of 
years, to be uninterrupted, and to be carried out in large 
blocks, in no case of less than 500 acres each. It will be 
difficult to induce private landowners to undertake, out of 
their diminished incomes, afforestation schemes on the large 
and continuous scale that is essential to success. 
In the case of water catchment areas belonging to 
corporations, the question of continuous ownership is 
solved; and the agreement entered into on 18th August 
1914 by the Liverpool Corporation with the Development 
Commissioners is a workable financial scheme that can be 
adopted generally. The Treasury provides the money 
necessary for planting, while the Corporation gives the land 
and pays the recurring annual expenses of management and 
taxes. In this partnership the produce of the forest will 
be ultimately divided between the two parties in the pro- 
portion of the capital invested by each. In this way the 
profit or loss accruing from the plantation will be fairly 
shared between the State and the Corporation. Afforesta- 
tion should be imposed as a necessary duty on all the water 
authorities who obtain their supply from gathering grounds ; 
in other words, each corporation ought to be compelled to 
carry out a planting scheme as soon as the Government 
shall issue a loan for the initial expenses of planting. The 
Forestry Board, that we hope to see established on the 
conclusion of peace, would prepare a working plan in each 
case, which ought to be systematically carried out, careful 
records being made of expenses and receipts. 
Since this was written the Forestry Sub-Committee of 
the Reconstruction Committee have issued their Report, and 
have made a very definite pronouncement concerning the 
areas from which water supplies are collected by local 
authorities. “We consider it should be an invariable rule 
that on catchment areas all land which will produce a crop 
of marketable timber should be afforested. Many of the 
corporations are still engaged in meeting the capital outlay 
which their water supply systems necessitated, and for that 
