670 REPORT— 1894. 



learn the obvious lesson that afforestation is not, as some suppose, a simple matter 

 of employment of labour, but that it involves the consideration of weighty 

 scientific problems. 



Forests, as a source of fuel, have not the direct importance to this country, 

 rich as it is in coal-supply, that they have in States less favoured, but their 

 economic importance to us as a source of timber needs no comment. There are 

 no means available through which to estimate the annual output of timber from 

 our plantations, but indirectly we can gauge the insufficiency of our woodlands to 

 supply the timber necessities of the country by reference to the returns showing 

 the amount and value of forest produce annually imported. This has been 

 steadily increasing until in 1893 its value exceeded eighteen million pounds. Of 

 course a considerable proportion of the materials thus imported could not in any 

 circumstances be produced in Britain. But, after allowing a liberal discount for 

 these, there remains a large bill which we pay for produce, no small portion of 

 which could be furnished at home. No one would suggest that in the limited and 

 densely populated area of Great Britain timber-trees of kiods suiting our climate 

 could be grown sufficient to supply all our demands ; that would be impossible. 

 But few would venture to deny that we could do very much better for ourselves 

 than we do, and that our labour payments abroad might be materially reduced. 

 It is admitted that well-grown home timber is, of its kind, equal to, if not superior 

 in quality to, that which is imported ; it is surely, then, legitimate to expect that a 

 large supply of well-grown timber would enable us to hold the market to a much 

 larger extent than is presently the case, and that we might be very much less 

 dependent than we are upon the surplus timber of other nations. 



The importance of this to the country is increased by the consideration of the 

 continued appreciation of timber. There is abundant evidence forthcoming to 

 indicate that the present rate of timber consumption of the world is in excess of 

 the present reproduction in the forests of the great timber-supplying countries, 

 and with the persistence of existing conditions we would appear to be within 

 measurable distance of timber famine. Experience, too, teaches that we may 

 expect not a diminution but rather an increase in consumption. No doubt as 

 civilisation advances the discoveries of science will, as they have done in the past, 

 enable us to substitute in many ways for the naturally produced wood other 

 substances prepared by manufacture ; but this saving in some directions has been, 

 and will probably continue to be, counterbalanced by greater utilisation in 

 others — witness, for example, the enormous development within recent years of 

 the wood-pulp industry abroad, and consider the prospect opened up by the manu- 

 facture of wood silk which is now being begun in Britain. 



That the possibility of forest exhaustion is no chimera should be evident to any- 

 one conversant with current timber literature. Taking North Europe for in- 

 stance : — In Norway, ' raw timber is yearly becoming more expensive and more 

 difficult to obtain.' To Sweden ' pitch pine long beams are taken from America, 

 suitable ones of sufficient size and quality being unobtainable now in Sweden.' In 

 Scandinavia, the virgin forests, ' excepting such as are specially reserved by the 

 Government in the districts where mills are situated, are almost exhausted.' In 

 Russia, the Riga ' supply of oak is exhausted.' These sentences, culled within 

 the past few weeks from trade journals, show that this is a more pertinent 

 question than some would suppose. In Sweden, which, it is remarkable, is actually 

 importing logs from America, the situation is regarded as so serious that proposals 

 are on foot for the imposition of a tax upon exported timber for the purpose of 

 raising a fund for replanting denuded areas. But it is not only in North European 

 countries that there are signs of the giving out of timber forests. As they fail 

 the demand upon Canadian and American stocks increases, and when we look at 

 these Canada ' shows signs of beginning to find it hard to continue her voluminous 

 exports to Europe, and at the same time send sufficient supplies to the United 

 States.' But the most striking evidence is that furnished by the chief of the United 

 States Department of Forestiy, in his official report for the year 1892, in which he 

 says: * While tliere are still enormous quantities of virgin timber standing, the 

 supply is not inexhaustible. Even were we to assume on every acre a stand of 



