AUGUST 205 



Here and there in the United Kingdom there is clean 

 grown timber to be found, but it cannot rely upon a good 

 market, so completely has the trade been diverted into 

 foreign channels ; nor can the home market be restored 

 without the establishment of conditions essential to every 

 business connection namely, uniform quality and steady 

 supply. This is hardly the place to discuss a question 

 of this magnitude. It is reassuring to know that it has 

 at last been forced upon the serious consideration of the 

 Government, and that there is some prospect of some 

 approach to a system of remunerative forestry being 

 undertaken by the state. 



The lover of the picturesque is wont to shudder at the 

 suggestion of systematic forestry, apprehending the ex- 

 change of liberal park scenery for the monotony of 

 German pine woods. His alarm is groundless. Let the 

 parks remain : there are hundreds of thousands of acres 

 of hill pasture, returning at present a rent of 8d. to 2s. an 

 acre, which, under proper management, would yield a 

 return equal to 8s. to 11s. an acre per annum over the 

 whole period of the crop say 100 years. The reader, 

 with bitter experience perhaps of the costliness of forestry 

 as a pastime, shrugs an incredulous shoulder at this state- 

 ment, but the average annual yield of German state forests 

 is 11s. an acre, that of private woodland 8s. And in 

 Germany it is only the poor lands that are planted. Nay, 

 but Germany is far off : let me give a single example of 

 the profit that may be earned in our own dear fatherland. 



Of all the conifers introduced to this country during 

 the last century, the Douglas fir promises to exceed all 

 others in combined rapidity of growth and quality of 

 timber. This beautiful tree, botanists have decided, is 



