38 



Canadian Forestry Journal, March, 1915 



Pine Trees tapped for Resin near Bordeaux. France. 



forestation was 1,600 and is now 14,000, 

 and considerable areas have been brought 

 under cultivation owing to the improved 

 conditions resulting from the fixing of the 

 sand dunes. It is no wonder that a mar- 

 ble monument as well as a bust in bronze 

 have been erected in the district to M. 

 Bremontier, who initiated this work. 



Forestry in Scotland. 



In the earlier history of Scotland it is 

 probable that the greater part of the High- 

 lands was covered with a tree growth 

 known as the Grampian forest, and that 

 the forest was destroyed over most of the 

 Highlands by fire which may have been 

 set in the later days for the purpose of 

 clearing out some of the turbulent clans 

 from the glens and thus enforcing a paci- 

 fication which otherwise seemed impos- 

 sible. As a matter of fact at the present 

 time a very large proportion of the High- 

 lands consists of heath-clad hills, with a 

 very little of natural forest on the estates 

 of some of the more prosperous land own- 

 ers. In the days of the Highland clear- 

 ances the glens were emptied of men in 

 many places to make way for sheep and 

 the grazing of sheep in the Highlands has 

 been recently its most important industry. 

 A careful study of the whole question of 

 the relative value of grazing and forestry 

 in the Highlands has been made in recent 

 years and the deliberate conclusion has 

 been reached that with land which will not 

 rent for more than one shilling an acre 



for grazing sheep, or even up to three 

 shillings, it is certainly much more profit- 

 able to put the land into forest, and those 

 of the private owners who are in a position 

 financially to do so are planting trees and 

 turning such lands into forests as rapidly 

 as they can overtake the work. A large 

 part of Scotland is so situated <that the 

 grazing is really not of great value as it 

 is reckoned in the Old Country where our 

 western estimate of one head of cattle to 

 20 or 30 acres of land, and one head of 

 sheep to about one-quarter of that area, 

 would be considered as reducing the graz- 

 ing value of the land so low as to make it 

 worthless for any purpose. 



The Eoyal Scottish Arboricultural So- 

 ciety, which includes many of the large 

 land owners in Scotland, is urging strongly 

 a general policy of reforestation for the 

 highlands of Scotland of such lands as are 

 non-agricultural and are not grazing land 

 of high quality. The Arboricultural So- 

 ciety argue for their view of this question 

 not only from the basis of the land being 

 thus put to its most valuable use but also 

 from the basis of developing an increased 

 population on the land, making the people 

 more comfortafble and contented and pos- 

 sibly stopping some of the exodus to Can- 

 ada which has proved such a great drain 

 on the poijulation of Scotland. The Ar- 

 boricultural Society has regular excursions 

 every few years to some of the European 

 forests and its members have seen the 

 effect on the development of population 

 of a well regulated co-operation between 



