August i6, 1894] 



NA TURE 



;73 



in Switzerland 4 per cent., whilst in Italy it is not 2 per cent. 

 The bulk of the forest is in the hands of private owners or 

 corporate bodies, subject, though apparently not always, to 

 some control or limitation by the Slate. But the example of 

 the States in the management of their own woods, their readi- 

 ness to give advice through their officials, and the education which 

 is carefully provided for those concerned in forestry work, have 

 resulted in those privately-owned forests being as well managed 

 as those of the State. It is important to make clear this dis- 

 tinction, because it shows that a State system of conservancy 

 and supervision of forestry is quite compatible with large private 

 ownership in forests, and that efficient sylviculture upon a large 

 scale is not inseparable from Slate ownership. 



But someone may say, " We, too, have State forests ! " Yes, 

 but it is almost absurd to mention them in the same sentence 

 with those of the continent for any part they play at present in 

 connection with forestry in Britain. The nine thousand acres 

 at Windsor are mainly covered with specimen trees. Of the 

 twenty- five thousand acres in the Forest of Dean, a portion is 

 supposed to be cultivated for a piofitable crop, but appears to 

 result in an annual deficit. The New Forest, with its sixty- 

 three thousand acres of soil-area, affords us one of the most 

 interesting object-lessons, showing the triumph of sentiment 

 over common-sense, that the country affords. Its history is 

 well enough known, and I need only remind you that Parliament 

 has decreed the major part of it to persist as a barren waste, 

 whilst in ihe remainder, which is covered with trees, the practice 

 of forestry is prohibited, so that slowly the whole is going 

 to wreck and ruin. This illustrates the value to us of State 

 forests! In the days of the "wooden walls'' the dockyards 

 obtained valuable timber from them, bat now their large area 

 is, one may say, of no State service whatever as forest, if one 

 excepts a small portion of Windsor Forest recently attached for 

 instruction purposes to Coopers Hill College. There can be no 

 question that if the Stale had set an example of scientific 

 forestry in even a portion of these areas, the practice of sylvicul- 

 ture now throughout the country would have been very different. 



I need not dwell on the fact that the conditions of land tenure 

 in the country have exercised an important influence upon the 

 extent of wood-planting in the country ; and they must always 

 <Jo so. " The oak scorns to grow except on free land " is a saw 

 that sums up pithily the relationship between land-laws and 

 woodlands in England. Copyholders could hardly be expected to 

 plant much timber when the lord of the manor claimed the 

 crop ; and I believe it is possible in some counties to Irace the 

 boundaries of copyholds by the entire absence of trees on one 

 side of a line and the luxuriant growth on the opposite side. 

 The intricacies of email and the lact that life-renters had ihem- 

 selves to bear the expense of planting, except where necessary 

 for shelter, without prospect of seeing a return for the outlay, 

 must have 0| crated prejudicially to an increase in woodlands. 

 Happily since 18S2 in England, and by an Act of last year lor 

 Scotland, the last-mentioned restriction upon tree-planting is 

 removed. 



Nor shall I pause over the question of game, which has been at 

 once the origin and the destruction of forests in Britain. Not that 

 it is an unmiportant element. But the instinctive love of sport 

 in the Briti'-h race is proof against all argument of utility, and 

 the needs of sport will always be a barrier, as they have been 

 iu the pa^t, to the planting of large areas well adapted for 

 timber-growing. It cannot well be otherwise. Landowners 

 can hardly be expected to forego large and immediate game- 

 rents for what appear the long-delayed, even though possit>ly 

 greater, profits of timber culiivation. In this c.ise the inevit- 

 able must be accepted. Nevertheless, there are large areas, 

 the game-rent of which is infinitesimal for their acreage, which 

 might be planted. 



The most potent factors in bringing about the present con- 

 dition of our woodlands are probably to be looked for in the 

 nature of the crop itself and in the want of appreciation of its 

 character manifested by landowners ; in a word, in a want of 

 knowledge of the principles ol scientific forestry. Forestry is handi- 

 capped as compared with agriculture by the fact that the crop 

 cannot be reaped within the year. The owner who plants and 

 incurs the initial expense of stock, fencing, and perhaps drain- 

 ing, may after some years secure intermediate return from thin- 

 nings, but it will rarely happen that he reaps the final yield at 

 maturity of the crop he has sown ; it will iail to his successor. 

 It is this planting for posterity that makes demands upon the 

 landowner to which he is unequal. Hence it comes about that 



NO. 1294, VOL. 50] 



woodland?, beyond what may be requisite in the way of cover 

 plantation and for shelter, are often regarded as expensive 

 luxuries, and, in the time of high agricultural values, landowners 

 have even grubbed out trees to make way for annual crops 

 yielding an immediate return. But scientific tree-growing for 

 profit does not consist in the covering of soil-area indiscrimin- 

 ately with trees, without definite system and relation of its part 

 one to the other. Just as the farmer has to plan his rotations 

 on a definite system with reference to his total acreage, so in 

 properly managed timber-growing must areas be arranged in 

 such a way that some part of the forest will be yielding annually 

 its final return of mature crop, and cleared areas will by a 

 natural process of regeneration replenish themselves without 

 recour.'e to the expensive operation of planting being necessary. 

 Scientifically worked a forest area of suitable land, of which 

 there is such abundance in Britain, should be capable of yielding 

 an annual net revenue as regular as that obtainable by any other 

 form of soil cultivation. 



It is nevertheless frequently urged as a reason for not growing 

 timber that wood will not pay in Britain. A landowner will tell 

 you he has acres of land which do not return him more than half- 

 a-ciown, and if it would pay better he W'ould be glad to put 

 them under timber, but he does not believe it would ; and he 

 will point to rates on woodlands which must be paid although 

 no crop is being reaped. lie will demonstrate that there is no 

 market for home timber, which seldom fetches its value, and 

 that there is a prejudice against it which increases the difficulty 

 of any attempt to compete with the foreigner. 



There is some reason in the latter part of this contention. 

 The wood-grower in Britain has I think just cause for com- 

 plaint when he finds his produce not only handicapped by 

 preferential transport rates to foreign timber, as has been the 

 case in the past, but that it is also disparaged by exclusion from, 

 or admission only under conditions to, competition with foreign 

 timber by the terms of building specifications. It is said to be 

 the common practice of architects and others to bar home timber 

 in this way, and the Government itself has not been guiltless in 

 the matter. The Post Office form of tender a couple of years 

 ago for telegraph poles entirely cut out native produce from 

 competition, and the conditions of contract framed by the 

 Board of Agriculture under the Land Improvements Act were 

 until recently almost prohibitive to home timber. These latter 

 are now modified, but whether or not the Post Office still 

 boycotts home produce I cannot say. 



However it is come about — and there are no doubt various 

 effective causes — this undervaluing of home-grown timber is 

 quite unreasonable, and the slur cast upon it is undeserved, so 

 far as its quality is concerned. At the same time, there is ground 

 for saying that the difficulties, occasioned in this and other ways, 

 of disposing of home timber at renumerative prices are due to 

 causes not altogether beyond the control of landowners who 

 grow timber. 



It is generally admitted that with a more regular and certain 

 supply, as well as a larger amount in different districts, home 

 timber would have a better chance of holding its own in the 

 market. This is just what scientific forestry would bring about. 

 Given a systematic cultivation of forest on scientific principles 

 of rotation, and the conditions are prepared for a steady output 

 of timber by annual cut, as well as for a supply of raw material 

 for utilisation in the manufacture of the many subsidiary pro- 

 ducts derivable from forest growth. If landowners would only 

 provide such supplies, they would alter altogether, and to their 

 own advantage, the conditions under which they dispose of so 

 much of their home wood. The timber merchant who now 

 travels hither and thither over the country picking up small lots 

 where they may occurfor transport to his, probably di-tant, mills, 

 at a cost which eats a big hole in the value of the trees to 

 the landowner, would find it worth his while — and for that 

 matter, it would be worth while for the landowner himself — to 

 erect in the vicinity of the forest, mills for the purpose of con- 

 verting and preparing the timber, and to put up machinery for 

 the extraction of useful products from the waste wood. In 

 such conditions a steady market could be created in which the 

 .advantage would lie altogether on the side of the home-grown 

 article, and materials, the debris of the forest, now thrown aside 

 as useless, would be turned to account to the greater benefit of 

 the landowner. Encouragement, too, would be given to the 

 establishment of local industries dependent upon forest growth, 

 through which fresh outlets for forest produce would be 

 provided. 



