JANUARY 17 



of the globe at our disposal. Here and there a few care- 

 ful landowners have borrowed from foreign countries and 

 put in practice the rules of good forestry, but by far the 

 larger proportion of British woods are run on amateur 

 lines, modified by local custom. Nor is the experience of 

 British State forests such as to encourage one to look to 

 Government to acquire and plant land. At present one 

 must be content, I suppose, to state the facts of the case 

 which are these : the land is to be had at a low rate of 

 purchase for the asking; it requires no fencing, for a 

 sheep farm may be planted from end to end, at least on 

 the suitable parts of it; there is every prospect of a 

 continuous rise in the price of timber, and a probability 

 that the country will be in dire straits for a supply before 

 trees now planted shall have grown to a size to meet it. 



It is no use discussing a project of this long-range 

 character without entering upon details. Let me do so 

 as briefly as possible. 



Suppose that Parliament could be persuaded to vote a 

 sum of 10,000 a year for the purchase and planting of 

 suitable land. There are tens of thousands of acres now 

 offered for sale in Scotland, producing an annual rent of 

 not more than two shillings an acre as sheep pasture, of 

 indifferent or no merit as grouse ground, but very suitable 

 for growing timber. Thirty years' purchase a liberal price, 

 as times go would secure 1000 such acres for 3000. 

 Planting this at three feet by three (probably the most 

 profitable distance on level ground, although many 

 planters save expense by placing the trees four feet 

 apart) l will require 4,840,000 trees for the 1000 acres (it 



1 I have submitted a case where planting is necessary, but there is 

 much ground where the soil will respond readily to the infinitely cheaper 

 B 



