600,000,000 more for our timber than we should have had 

 to pay for a similar amount at 1909-1913 prices. 



''It is not argued that if the planting program now adopted 

 had been completed before the war the price of timber would 

 not have risen. It can, however, definitely be stated that had 

 these additional woods been in existence they would have 

 competed with Scandinavia and Finland and tended to keep 

 prices of softwoods at a lower level." 



Referring to the forest situation in Great Britain prior to 

 1919, the Corrunission sums up conditions as follows: 



"Those accustomed to the highly developed State forests 

 of the Continent, with their regular succession of age classes 

 and their ordered routine based on centuries of experience will 

 have difficulty in realizing the conditions under which State 

 forestry made its start in this country. Apart from the Crown 

 woods the State forests in Great Britain in 1919 consisted of 

 a few hundred acres of plantation recently acquired in Ireland. 



"As a result of the absence of State forests, there was no 

 organized higher executive staff with British experience, no 

 forest officer personnel, no body of foresters and foremen with 

 State forest experience or customs, and, above all no forestry 

 code. Surveys of plantable land were only beginning and 

 little or no statistical information had been collected regarding 

 privately owned woodlands. British forestry research was 

 yet in its infancy. Admirable as had been the pioneer work it 

 had seldom been directed to those particular points which 

 were of importance to a forest authority initiating State 

 Forestry *ab avo'. It is true that experiments on a considerable 

 scale had been undertaken by private individuals, but although 

 in the mass they represented a body of information of real 

 importance, the results had seldom been reduced to a form 

 available for general application. In embarking on a policy 

 of State forestry a start had therefore to be made, if not from 

 the scratch, from a point very near it." 



Taking these statements into account, it is interesting^ to 

 discover through the firstannual reportof the Forest Commission 

 just issued, that the Commission has made a more than satis- 

 factory beginning. It is now in possession of 103,100 acres of 

 land scattered throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and 

 Wales of which 68,000 acres are classified as plantable. The 

 area planted including that planted during the current season 



