194 FORESTS, WOODS, AND TREES 
1. In Oxenhope and Denholme Parishes, 1090 acres, 
acquired at a cost of £44,464 for the purpose of protect- 
ing and preserving the purity of the water drawn from 
Denholme Moor and Thornton Moor. These lands were let 
in 1906, under restrictive clauses as to manuring and tillage, 
to thirty-six tenants at an average annual rent of 15s. per 
acre. Forest timber has not been grown, and no planta- 
tions exist on the owned lands or on any other part of these 
areas, the elevation of which varies from 800 feet at Leem- 
ing to 1325 feet at Spring Hall. 
2. In Lower Nidderdale, 618 acres, at 460 to 1000 feet 
elevation, acquired at a cost of £13,850, and let in 1906 to 
three tenants at an annual rent of 16s. per acre. 
3. In Upper Nidderdale, 7051 acres, including 109 
acres at Lofthouse, acquired at a cost of £2050 and let asa 
farm at £50 yearly. The remaining 6942 acres, acquired 
for £71,838, range in elevation from 900 feet at Woodale 
to 2300 feet on Whernside. This is wild and bleak in 
winter, and without any trees, being devoted to grazing 
black-faced hill sheep in summer, and grouse shooting in 
autumn. 
Proposals of afforestation of all these catchment areas 
were strongly opposed by the engineer, Mr. James Watson, 
from whose report on 19th January 1906 to the Bradford 
Waterworks Committee the preceding particulars of owner- 
ship are taken. His main contention was that on the 
higher elevations forest trees would certainly fail to grow, 
and that at lower altitudes they could scarcely be grown 
with profit. He raised one objection: the disturbance of 
the peat by planting operations. The Thornton Moor area, 
where the peat is abraded and exposed, imparts to the rains 
an acidity that unless neutralised by constant treatment 
acts on lead pipes. He considered that the digging of 
3000 pits per acre, and the cutting of the necessary drains 
in the peaty subsoil, would for years render difficult the 
treatment of the water, and entail serious risk of lead 
poisoning. He did not believe that tree-planting was work 
calculated to give more than very short and temporary 
