674 REPORT— 1894. 



industries dependent upon forest growth, through which fresh outlets for forest 

 produce would be provided. 



The amount of profit returnable from timber cultivation must of course vary 

 with the circumstances of the area in each case, but in comparing values it must 

 always be borne in mind that timber land is land which can yield no agricultural 

 rent. The official statistics relating to Continental State forests show us tiie result 

 of forestry on a large scale, and it is interesting to note how, under what we must 

 believe to be an equally efficient system of forestry management, the net revenue 

 from the several areas differs greatly. Thus from its two million acres of forest 

 area Bavaria draws a little over five shillings per acre per annum ; Wurtemberg, 

 with nearly half a million acres, gets a return of about eleven shillings ; and Saxony, 

 with a somewhat less area, receives over seventeen shillings per acre per annum. 

 For this country we have no such figures. Our State forests result in a loss, it is 

 unfortunate, too, that no returns are available from private forests and woodlands, 

 either in Britain or abroad. Estimates of possible profits in this country we have 

 abundantly, but solid figures of e.xpenditure and receipt in relation to timber- 

 growing there are none. By the favour of Mr. Munro-Ferguson, M.P., who, as a 

 landowner, exhibits a most enlightened spirit in regard to forestry, I am, however, 

 able to cite the case of a pine and larch wood at Novar, in Ross-shire, twenty-four 

 acres in extent, which was clean cut in 1883, and gives instructive figures. After 

 sixty-one years' growth on land similar to that which in the neighbourhood yields 

 a grazing rent of from one to two shillings per acre, it is found to have yielded a 

 net sum equal to a revenue to the landlord during the whole period of its growth 

 of over nine shillings per acre per annum, or an increased value of quite seven 

 shillings per acre per annum. Although it refers to only a single wood of limited 

 extent, this return shows how profitable waste land may become under timber. 

 No doubt from the estates of other of our landlords who own extensive woodlands, 

 where, if there is not the liighest scientific forestry, there is certainly good wood 

 management, results of an equally instructive kind could be obtained — many would 

 be better; and it is much to be desired in the interest of forestry that they should 

 be made known as an object-lesson to those who doubt the profit of tree-growing. 



But in the return I quote from there is another interesting point which I must 

 not fail to note. Dui'ing the period of growth of the wood, the outlay upon labour 

 in connection with it amounted to a sum equal to an expenditure of over thirty-one 

 shillings per acre per annum. That is to say, tliis sum was distributed in wages to 

 the people of the neighbourhood. This exhibits the benefits brought in the train 

 of forestry, which are no less important to the community at large than is the 

 profit of the crop to the landowner. The scientific treatment of woodlands and 

 cultivation of forests for profit on a proper scale involve the employment of a con- 

 siderable amount of labour, much of it at a time when there is little else doing in 

 country districts, not only in the actual tending of the forest area, but in the 

 manipulation and subsequent preparation of the timber, and in the manufacture of 

 the numerous by-products obtainable from it. In these days of congestion in cities 

 the importance ot the development of such an industry which can provide occupa- 

 tion in the country, and thus may aid in restraining migration to the towns, has not 

 escaped notice, and ii cannot be too often or too greatly emphasised. 



The influences, to which we have just given attention, that have prevailed in 

 bringing about the present limited area of woodland in Britain are, it will be seen, 

 not wholly irremovable, nor are the obstacles to betterment insurmountable. And 

 the question we have now to discuss is — How are these to be counteracted and 

 overcome? By what means isjt possible to bring forestry in Britain more in line 

 with that of othei' nations? At the outset I would say that if forestry is to be 

 established on a sound commercial basis, the only one on which it should rest, if 

 Ave are to have a national home-timber industrj-, it can only be when the issues 

 involved are more fully realised than they are nowadays. As in agricultural 

 practice failure can only be obviated by the application of scientific methods in 

 farm cultivation, so is it with forestry. To become a profitable industry it must be 

 practised as nn applied science, and not as an empirical routine. 



We live beyond the days when it would be possible to apply the autocratic 



