PROSPECTS AND POSSIBILITIES OF FORESTRY 51 



plant waste land, we certainly ought to consider the means 

 by which he is to do it. 



The first and most natural facilities for work of this kind 

 are afforded by the Board of Agriculture in connection with 

 the various Land Improvement Acts which have been passed 

 during the last twenty or thirty years. These Acts provide 

 for the granting of loans for estate improvements, amongst 

 which forestry is included. The interest on these loans is 

 charged at 3f per cent., with an additional 1^ per cent, as a 

 sinking fund. In round figures this interest amounts to 4 per 

 cent., and as we have seen that the average landowner does not 

 expect, and probably does not receive, more than 2| per cent, 

 on an average from his woods, it is clear that these loans do 

 not assist him in a financial sense. This in itself might not 

 be an insuperable obstacle to them being used for the purpose 

 in question, if a more direct and immediate return were 

 forthcoming from the work referred to. But such is not the 

 case ; and the borrower under these Acts is therefore con- 

 verted into a rent-payer for the rest of his natural life, in 

 order that the estate may benefit after he has left it. The 

 general result of this is, of course, that loans are seldom 

 granted, or at least asked for, for planting purposes, the 

 landowner preferring to bear the cost of this work out of his 

 own pocket, or to leave it alone altogether. 



Can the above state of affairs be remedied ? We 

 believe that it can, but only by a more liberal and public- 

 spirited application of Government money than is now 

 accustomed. When we consider that every estate contains 

 a stock of timber which is worth many thousands of pounds 

 in value, but which the life tenant cannot realise or raise 

 a loan upon in the ordinary form of a mortgage, it is evident 

 that a source of capital exists on his estate which cannot 

 be made use of except when cut and sold to the timber 

 merchant. The latter, of course, he can only do in a 

 limited degree, and whatever he does in that direction is 

 usually done to meet more urgent demands upon his resources 

 than those due to planting operations. But if Government 

 would only advance the money for the express purpose of 

 planting waste land or woodland improvement on the 

 security of the standing timber, his difficulties might at 



