OUR WOODLANDS. 



25 



State owns no woodlands whatever ; there is not a single acre 

 of State woodland in Great Britain. Experimental planting is 

 likely to be done soon under the Development Act, 1909 ; but 

 before any very extensive national scheme of planting can be 

 successfully begun in Scotland, where most of the plantable land 

 is admitted to be, a well-equipped School for Forest Apprentices 

 is just as necessary as the large funds that will be needed for 

 such a large permanent investment. The importance of trying 

 to do something to provide for our future requirements in 

 timber and wood-produce can easily be judged of from the fact 

 that both in 1906 and in 1907 our gross imports of wood and 

 timber, wood-pulp and manufactured wood-pulp, amounted in 

 value for each year to over .37,378,000, while the total for 

 wood and timber alone totalled over 29,013,000 in. each year. 

 As comparatively little of this is re-exported, these figures show 

 the vast field open to timber-growing whether mainly by 

 private landowners with State encouragement and assistance, or 

 directly by the State, or by some such combination of State and 

 private efforts as obtains in France and Germany. Over nine- 

 tenths of our wood imports are of coniferous timber, which is 

 just the class of trees that can be grown most conveniently and 

 successfully on our poor and waste lands, aggregating over 

 16 -J million acres. Britain is, in fact, one of the most poorly 

 wooded countries in the world, the land statistics being as 

 follows (in acres in round numbers) : 



