202 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



First of all, of the enormous quantities of timber 

 now being annually imported into Britain for 

 constructive purposes more than nine-tenths are 

 coniferous, nor are the demands likely to change 

 in this respect, and the whole of these imports 

 could be easily and profitably grown as crops of 

 timber on poor land now lying disused or heather- 

 grown, and all but unproductive save for shooting 

 purposes. Secondly, in comparison with broad- 

 leaved trees, the conifers make but small demand 

 on fertility of the soil, while even among conifers 

 the pines, and particularly Scots and Corsican 

 pines, form fairly good woodland crops, where it 

 would be hard to form plantations of other, more 

 exacting kinds of trees. Hence a conifer crop of 

 some sort, and sometimes, as on poor dry soils, 

 specifically a crop of pine, is the only practical 

 stepping-stone by which denuded and deteriorated 

 hillsides or moors can be improved, by fall of 

 the needles, so as later on to become suitable, if 

 desired, for bearing a more exacting crop of 

 broad-leaved trees when the conifers become 

 mature and are marketable to the best advantage. 

 And, finally, on the poorer classes of soil coni- 

 ferous crops of timber, judiciously formed and 



