4 THE SAD PLIGHT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



Our Forests and Woodlands, 1 has shown good cause for 

 reflection whether, both from a private and a national 

 point of view, the time has not come to found a new 

 source of wealth by the proper treatment of waste land 

 which is neither deer forest nor grouse moor. Pointing 

 to the enormous and rapid development of the United 

 States and of Germany in timber-consuming industry, he 

 regards the recent rapid rise in the price of timber as no 

 temporary fluctuation. The visible supply of timber in 

 the world has been diminishing for many years; the 

 demands upon it have been constantly increasing. What 

 must be the not remote result ? 



1 Briefly stated (says Mr. Nisbet) the economic conditions now 

 already obtaining, and practically certain soon to become greatly 

 accentuated, are such that the present sources of supply through- 

 out the world are just able to meet the existing demand. But 

 the demand seems certain to increase, and such enhancement 

 can only be met by working out timber from backwoods and 

 remote tracts which are at present unremunerative. Hence a 

 general rise in prices throughout Scandinavia, Eussia, and Canada 

 must be the direct result of competition between Britain, 

 America, and Germany.' 



It is quite true that in some timber-producing countries 

 the State has interfered to ensure judicious reafforestation, 

 and in others, such as Western Australia and Queensland, 

 private commercial foresight has made provision against 

 reckless denudation ; but the restoration of felled wood 

 is a process which cannot be hurried ; the average time 

 required for timber crops to mature leaves very little 

 change out of a century. On favourable soil and in good 

 exposure Scots fir and larch may be most profitably 



1 London : J. M. Dent and Co., 1900. 



