24 SYLVICULTURE. 



demand. Curved oak is not much needed for ship-building, 

 nor is oak -bark much used for tanning ; small coppice-wood, 

 formerly required for hop-poles, hurdles, &c., is now hardly 

 saleable at all ; and birch and alder, once greatly in demand 

 for gunpowder charcoal, is no longer used in large quantities. 



Several Committees have during the last 25 years been 

 appointed to deal with Forestry ; but, so far as planting is 

 concerned, only little practical result has come of these inquiries. 

 In 1887 a Parliamentary Committee made recommendations 

 which were -not acted on; and in 1902-3 a Departmental 

 Committee of the Board of Agriculture reported on the subject. 

 It refrained from recommending any great national scheme of 

 planting, but advocated more and better instruction in Forestry ; 

 and lecturers have since then been appointed at Newcastle, 

 Bangor, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and other collegiate centres, whereas 

 previously the only collegiate course of lectures had been given 

 at Edinburgh University (since 1889). 



In 1904 a school for Forest Apprentices was opened in the 

 Forest of Dean (Gloucestershire) by the Commissioners of 

 Woods and Forests, and in 1905 a similar Forest School was 

 organised at Avondale (Co. Wicklow) by the Department of 

 Agriculture in Ireland ; but as yet no such school has been 

 founded for Scotland, although it contains far more plantable 

 land than England, Wales, and Ireland all taken together. In 

 1908 a Committee appointed by the Department of Agriculture 

 in Ireland recommended an extensive scheme of planting 

 700,000 acres in Ireland; and in 1909 the Koyal Commission 

 on Coast Erosion and Afforestation issued a report recommending 

 a vast scheme for the planting of 9,000,000 acres by the State, 

 of which 6,000,000 were to be in Scotland, and the remaining 

 3,000,000 in England, Wales, and Ireland. Of our existing 

 3,030,000 acres of woods and plantations, 97*7 per cent belong 

 to private owners, and 2 '3 per cent to the Crown, being mostly 

 remnants of the ancient royal forests ; but except as regards 

 some recent purchases made by the Department in Ireland, the 



