AFFORESTATION OF CATCHMENT AREAS 103 
By the spring of 1914 the area of the plantations had 
been increased to 550 acres. In 1915 a further develop- 
ment was under discussion with the Board of Agriculture, 
who submitted a scheme for the planting of 761 acres 
additional over a period extending to the season 1929-1930, 
or a little over 50 acres annually. The Corporation, while 
adopting this scheme as a plan to be generally followed, 
ultimately decided to proceed independently of any loan 
from or partnership with the Board of Agriculture or 
Development Commissioners. Since the outbreak of the 
war this plan has been interfered with owing to lack of 
labour; and the additional area planted has been about 40 
acres only, making the total area under plantation in May 
1917 about 590 acres. Mr. E. A. Lees, Secretary to the City 
of Birmingham Water Department, to whom I am indebted 
for this information, states that the whole of the lands 
available for plantation in the Elan Valley are comprised 
in the scheme of the Board of Agriculture and amount to 
about 1300 acres. This seems to be a small proportion 
indeed of the 45,562 acres included in the catchment area ; 
but the explanation is given in the following statement 
made by Mr. Lees at the Afforestation Conference of 1907 
(Parl. Paper, No. 98, p. 41): “There is difficulty in 
obtaining land for planting. Although we control the 
whole of our gathering grounds, there are other rights in 
it; there are, for instance, the rights of the commoners. 
We can control as regards the surface. Consequently the 
areas which hitherto we have been able to utilise for 
planting have been confined to our own freeholds and 
commons which were already within the limits of our 
works. If planting is to be carried out to any considerable 
extent, it will certainly be necessary to give facilities for 
the recovery of common lands.” 
The Reconstruction Forestry Report, 1918, p. 94, states 
that a survey made by the Board of Agriculture disclosed 
6800 acres suitable for afforestation on the Elan catchment 
area, 
A full account of the Elan watershed, with plan and 
