82 FORESTS, WOODS, AND TREES 
to acquire the land on their water catchment areas at a fair 
value. The Lintrathen watershed, from which Dundee takes 
most of its water supply, is 22,000 acres in extent; but only 
1000 acres have been purchased by the Dundee Water 
Commissioners, and of this 200 acres have been success- 
fully planted. As 8700 acres in the gathering ground are 
below 1000 feet elevation, it is probable that a large forest 
might be profitably created at Lintrathen. The great difficulty 
lies in the exorbitant price that has been paid by Corpora- 
tions for land compulsorily acquired. Mr. Baxter (7) urges 
that “the burden of an extensive afforestation scheme can 
only be equitably adjusted if State-aided. Government 
aid need not necessarily be wholly in the shape of direct 
financial assistance. Let us have a compulsory system 
of land purchase for waterworks purposes or afforestation 
purposes by local authorities, under which such land may 
be obtained at something like its market value instead 
of the present system, through the operation of which 
communities are called upon to pay such high prices.” 
The exorbitant prices paid by municipalities to land- 
owners for waterworks sites and the like seem to be in 
many cases grossly unfair. This is due in part to the heavy 
costs of arbitration, and in part to the excessive sums 
awarded by arbiters under what Mr. James Watson (8) 
calls that intangible excrescence to the Land Clauses 
Consolidation Act known as ‘special adaptability. In 
England, Ireland, and Scotland “the claims set up under 
this head for land good, bad, or indifferent (if it had to be 
acquired under statutory powers for waterworks) were 
such that land instantly appreciated to ten or twenty 
times its agricultural value if needed for waterworks 
on the grounds of the ill-defined pleas of ‘special 
adaptability.’ ” 
Value for ‘special adaptability’ seems to have been first 
claimed in the arbitration between the Countess Ossalinski 
and the Manchester Corporation in regard to land around 
Thirlmere. The award which was given, being about 120 
years purchase on the rental of the land and residence, was 
