3i 8 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



are considered business principles, are nothing 

 like so well stocked or so remunerative as they 

 otherwise would be. 



A singular and very convincing proof of this 

 was given at the recent discussion on Forest 

 Management at the Surveyors' Institution, when 

 Mr. Daniel Watney, the well-known authority 

 and expert on British timber, remarked that 



' In a paper read by Professor Fisher of Cooper's Hill before 

 the Dublin Royal Society, it was estimated that there were 

 4,000,000 acres in Great Britain and 2,000,000 acres in Ireland 

 which were available for planting, and, as he gathered from 

 the report he had seen of the paper, these 6,000,000 acres 

 were expected to be capable of yielding 75 cubic feet per 

 acre per annum. He could not quite understand this, for 

 if these 75 cubic feet were put at the price of 6d. a foot even, 

 the yield would be 375. 6d. per acre per annum.' 



The best continuous annual returns known to 

 him, Mr. Watney continued, were those of 

 305. an acre yielded by beechwoods in Bucking- 

 hamshire (see page 138). Yet I venture to say 

 that an anticipation of 75 cubic feet per acre 

 is quite justifiable as an average annual yield. 

 Often much over 100 cubic feet in actual solid 

 contents, and therefore still considerably in ex- 

 cess of 75 cubic feet, even if all be reduced to 



