Afforesting Waste Lands and Financial Returns 289 



IRELAND. s. d. 

 Wicklow, 700-900 ft. .altitude, fencing and 



planting ..... per acre 4 13 11 



Armagh (bogland), fencing and planting 520 



Another instance in Scotland may be recorded, in which 

 550 acres were planted at a cost of 1,178, or at the rate of 

 2 25. Wd. per acre. This included for fencing, 164 185. 4d. ; 

 drainage, 123 15s. ; plants, 520 10s. ; planting, 368 

 16s. Sd. 



In connexion with these figures, it may be reassuring to 

 state that in each case a strict account -of the expenditure 

 involved had been carefully noted, and the returns given are 

 practically correct. The average cost, therefore, taking 

 Great Britain as a whole, would be about 5 per acre for 

 fencing and planting the ground. The above-named planta- 

 tions, too, were formed on the very class of ground of which 

 we have so much lying idle or bringing in only a few shillings 

 rental per acre, in various parts of the country. The Ross- 

 shire plantation referred to was a bleak and barren moor- 

 land which the crofters, who used it as a common for their 

 cattle and sheep, refused to rent at Is. per acre per annum, 

 while at Strathspey the 20,000 acres of land were let out 

 previous to planting at 8d. per acre per annum. Vast tracts 

 of the bare hillsides of Wales are only bringing in a few 

 shillings of rental per acre. It should be remembered that 

 all the above-named plantations were formed on bleak, 

 exposed moorlands the very class of waste lands that I 

 have so strongly advocated as being suitable for the wood- 

 lands of the future, and of which at the present time there 

 are about 15,000,000 acres lying idle in various parts of the 

 kingdom. Therefore the cost of planting may be con- 

 sidered as or about 5 per acre. This, with 2 5s. for cost 

 of purchase and 5s. for incidental expenses, would bring the 

 initial total expenditure to 7 10s. per acre. Elsewhere I 

 have suggested that 1,000,000 acres should be planted over 

 a period of twenty-five years, at the rate of 40,000 acres per 

 year, which would entail an outlay of 300,000 annually 

 a small sum when compared with the 25,000,000 expended 

 each year by this country on supplies brought from abroad. 



