6 THE SAD PLIGHT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



over three million acres. Most people go through life 

 with a very vague impression about the extent of an acre ; 

 none but trained minds can apprehend what is meant 

 by a million. Perhaps the most vivid way of explaining 

 the present extent of British and Irish woodland is to 

 state that, were it all united in a continuous mass, it 

 would cover with 'a boundless contiguity of shade' the 

 entire counties of Oxford, Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, 

 Northampton, and Nottingham. Those three million acres 

 would by no means suffice, even had they received for 

 one hundred years past the most skilful management, for 

 the present requirements of the home timber market; 

 but Mr. Nisbet reckons that they might have been made 

 to meet one- third of the demand now supplied by the 

 foreigner. 



'If our three million acres of woodlands were trebled in 

 extent ' (says he), ' and were all managed on business principles, 

 in place of being under uneconomic management as game 

 coverts and pleasure-grounds, as is now mostly the case with 

 British forests, this would merely be able to supply existing 

 requirements, and no more. Nay, even if we had twelve 

 million acres under forest, and all under the best of manage- 

 ment, they would probably be just about able to supply the 

 demand for timber likely to exist at the time plantations now 

 formed may become mature.' 



That is to say, in from one to two hundred years ! It is 

 obvious that a forecast at such long range must be under- 

 stood with ' errors excepted ' ; but then no forecast, no 

 forestry. To forecast the general value of timber a 

 hundred years hence is hazardous indeed ; still more so to 

 predict what trees it will then prove to have been most 

 worth planting now. It so happens that, at the present 



