144 PHEASANTS 



of the government, and are quite beyond 

 the province of the ordinary individual 

 landowner. These millions of acres 

 heath waste and unproductive sheepland 

 lie ready to the nation's hand to be 

 planted by the nation for the nation's 

 good. It would be quite beyond the 

 means of the average landowner in these 

 times when imperial taxation and local 

 burdens steadily increase at a rate per- 

 versely proportionate to the decline of 

 agricultural rents to contemplate with 

 any equanimity the heavy capital expendi- 

 ture required to plant on a remunera- 

 tive scale, wherefrom only his descendant 

 in the second or third generation could 

 derive any benefit. 



Moreover a simple calculation suffici- 

 ently proves that the planting of any land, 

 whereof the agricultural rental exceeds 

 half-a-crown an acre, is economically un- 

 sound from a commercial point of view, 

 the eventual expectation from the timber 

 crop being swallowed up in compound 

 interest on initial expenditure and lost 



