ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 85 



of going chiefly to Russia and Scandinavia, but 

 much more money would also be circulated in 

 the formation, tending, and reaping of the crops 

 of timber, in its transport and conversion, and 

 in its distribution to the places of consumption. 

 With so much land of poor quality lying uncul- 

 tivated in many parts of the British Isles, the 

 apathy shown towards Forestry in Britain is one 

 of the things that it is impossible to understand. 

 Our humid climate has saved us from the agri- 

 cultural consequences of excessive clearance of 

 woodlands ; but we are now probably very soon 

 about to reap commercially what we have sown 

 in the wholesale destruction of the crops of 

 timber with which the British Islands were once 

 quite as richly endowed by nature as were the 

 foreign countries that have better husbanded 

 their natural resources in woodlands. 



Heroic measures to replace the woodlands 

 destroyed can only be undertaken on a sufficiently 

 large scale by receiving considerable encourage- 

 ment and assistance from the State, whose attitude 

 has hitherto been extremely unsympathetic in this 

 respect. But something, at any rate, can with- 

 out much difficulty be done to remedy existing 



