TRAXSACTIOXS OF SECTION D. 673 



in the time of high agricultural values, landowners have even grubbed out trees 

 to make way for annual crops yielding an immediate return. But scientific tree- 

 growing for profit does not consist in the covering of soil area indiscriminately 

 with Irees, without definite system and relation of its part one to the other. 

 Just as the farmer has to plan his rotations on a definite system with reference 

 to his total acreage, so in properly managed timber-growing must areas be 

 arranged in such a way that some part of the forest will be yielding annually its 

 final return of mature crop, and cleared areas will by a natural process of regene- 

 ration replenish themselves without recourse to the expensive operation of planting 

 being necessary. Scientifically worked, a forest area on suitable land, of which 

 there is such abundance iu Britain, should be capable of yielding an annual net 

 revenue as regular as that obtainable by any other form of soil cultivation. 



It is nevertheless frequently urged as a reason for not growing timber that 

 wood will not pay in Britain. A landowner will tell you he has acres of land 

 which do not return him more than half a crown, and if it would pay better he 

 would be glad to put them under timber, but he does not believe it would; and 

 he will point to rates on woodlands wliich must be paid although no crop is 

 being reaped. He will demonstrate that there is no marlcet for home timber, 

 which seldom fetches its value, and that there is a prejudice against it which 

 increases the ditHculty of any attempt to compete with the foreigner. 



There is some reason in the latter part of this contention. The wood-grower 

 in Britain has, I tliink, just cause for complaint when he finds his produce not 

 only hfindicapped by preferential transpoit rates to foreign timber, as has been 

 the case in the past, but that it is also disparaged by exclusion from, or admission 

 only under conditions to, competition with foreign timber by the terms of building 

 specifications. It is said to be the common practice of architects and others to 

 bar home timber in this way, and the Government itself has not been guiltless in 

 the matter. The Post Office form of tender a couple of years ago for telegraph 

 poles entirely cut out native produce from competition, and the conditions of 

 contract framed by the Board of Agriculture under the Land Improvements 

 Act were until recently almost prohibitive to home timber. These latter are 

 now modified, but whetber or not the Post Office still boycotts home produce I 

 cannot say. 



However it is come about — and there are no doubt various eifective causes — this 

 iindervaluing of home-grown timber is quite unreasonable, and the slur cast upon 

 it is undeserved, so far as its quality is concerned. At the same time, there is 

 ground for saying tbat the ditliculties, occasioned in this and other ways, of dis- 

 posing of home timber at remunerative prices are due to causes not altogether 

 beyond the control of landowners who grow timber. 



It is generally admitted that with a more regular and certain supply, as well 

 as a larger amount in different districts, home timber would have a better chance 

 of holding its own in the market. This is just what scientific forestry would 

 bring about. Given a systematic cultivation of forest on scientific principles of 

 rotation, and the conditions are prepared for a steady output of timber by annual 

 cut, as well as for a supply of raw material for utilisation in the manufacture of 

 the many subsidiary products derivable from forest growth. If landowners 

 would only provide such supplies, they would alter altogether, and to their own 

 advantage, the coudiiions under which they dispose of so much of their home 

 wood. The timber merchant who now travels hither and tbither over the 

 country picking up small lots where they may occur for transport to his, pro- 

 bably distant, mills, at a cost which eats a big hole in the value of the trees to 

 the landowner, would find it worth his while — and, for that matter, it would be 

 worth while for the landowner himself— to erect, in the vicinity of the forest, mills 

 for the purpose of converting and preparing the timber, .md to put up machinery 

 for the extraction of usf-ful products from the waste wood. In such conditions 

 a steady market could be created in which the advantage would lie altogether oil 

 the side of the home-grown article, and materials, the debris of the forest, now 

 thrown aside as useless would be turned to account to the greater benefit of the 

 landowner. Encouragement, too, would be given to the establishment of lo^al 



1894. X X 



