326 



THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



Timber of the 

 qest only grown 

 by proper 

 management. 



British climate 

 and soil ideal 

 for timber 

 growth. 



significant that the consumption of timber in England (and in 

 America also) is increasing yearly at a regular and rapid rate, 

 while the sources of timber-supply are getting rapidly fewer. But 

 if England can save a pound by laying out a shilling she will not 

 lay out that shilling until absolutely compelled ; and for this style 

 of economy, or want of economy, called ' drifting,' the politicians 

 who opposed the scientific management of the New Forest, and 

 allowed its magnificent old trees to be lopped and burnt by the 

 commoners, are mainly responsible. 



That England does not possess one single forest managed on 

 any plan of rotation* similar to the ordinary 'working plan,' 

 under which all the Continental forests have been brought to 

 their present condition of regular productiveness and renewal, 

 seems almost incredible. Yet it is a fact that none existed where 

 the pupils of the Indian forest-school could be trained in the 

 practice of forestry, and until lately! they had to go through the 

 course in Germany or France. 



It has been objected that the timber grown in England is 

 inferior to foreign-grown pine and deal, so much so that in 

 Board of Works contracts home-grown timber is unpatriotically 

 excluded. On this point anyone who has studied the growth of 

 pine-trees in the natural forests of the Himalayas and the Rocky 

 Mountains can easily see that the inferiority of much plantation- 

 grown timber is due to the ignorance of those who planted the 

 various kinds of pines in the wrong positions, and also to its 

 being grown too fast and coarse in the grain. 



The mountains and moors and waste lands of Scotland, England, 

 Wales, and Ireland have a climate and soil quite ideal for the 

 growth of larch, spruce, and pine timber, if care is taken to treat 

 them according to Nature's laws. Scotch fir, as grown in 

 plantations, is perishable, loose-grained stuff, entirely unfit for 

 joiners' work. This is timber grown wrongly. But in the bogs 

 in Ireland, lying under 20 feet of peat, are found Scotch fir 

 stems of great length and thickness, which may have lain there 

 10,000 years, the timber of which is perfectly sound, fine-grained, 



* Within a few years three or four private owners have had 'working plans' 

 constructed. 



f A strip of Windsor Great Forest has now been granted to the Cooper's 

 Hill College, which will be brought into rotation in a century to train the 

 pupils in 



