368 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 
Thus, although the short rotation yields a smaller net income than the long rotation, 
this is more than compensated for by the smaller capital involved ; and the annual 
sum paid in wages is greater on the short than the long rotation. 
AFTERNOON. 
10. The Rt. Hon. Lorp Lovat, K.T.—Review of the Forestry Commis- 
sioners’ Work and certain Problems to be faced in the near future. 
The ten-year programme laid down by the Acland Report, and embodied in the 
1919 Forestry Act, includes the planting of 150,000 acres by the State, the acquisition 
of 432,000 acres of afforestable land, the reafforestation of 101,000 acres by local 
authorities and private individuals, as well as a programme of Research, Education, 
Publications, and Grants to Corporate Bodies and Private Landowners. A review 
of the first five years’ work of the Commission shows that this programme can be and, 
provided there is no further interference, will be carried out for the sum voted by 
Parliament under the 1919 Forestry Act. 
The Acland Report did not include the taking over of the Crown woods or the 
financing of a small holders’ policy in connection with State forests, and an additional 
grant will be necessary for carrying out a portion of the small holders’ policy 
authorised by the Labour Government of 1924, and confirmed by the present Govern- 
ment in 1925. 
As yet no programme has been laid down for the second ten-year or any subsequent 
period. Preparations for a planting programme take three years to materialise, and 
it will be necessary in the next financial year (1926-27) to ask Parliament to consider 
and come to a decision on what lines the second ten-years’ programme is to run. 
Eight years ago it was argued that it was necessary to increase the supply of 
home-grown timber :— 
1. To prevent a shortage of timber in time of war or during a period of strained 
relations—commercial or otherwise—with timber-producing countries. 
2. To provide a reserve against the time when the exhaustion of the virgin forests 
of the world began to be acutely felt. 
3. To increase the employment and permanent settlement of the population of 
rural areas. ; 
The Forestry Commission believed that to arrive at a considered opinion on the 
first of these points it was necessary to settle definitely what the home timber 
resources really amounted to. A census of woodlands was begun in 1920, which will 
be completed in the course of the year 1926, and for the first time in history a ; 
complete survey of the woodlands of Britain will be available. 
A second survey which the Forestry Commission has begun is the collection and 
co-ordination of statistics of the World’s Coniferous Timber Supply, more especially 
those of the great exporting countries. Two Empire Forestry Conferences have been 
held, at both of which resolutions were passed on the importance of accurate surveys 
of Empire timber resources. These resolutions have been adopted by the Imperial 
Economic Conference. This survey is being made by the Dominions and non-self- 
governing Colonies, and it is being carried out on the same lines, and all results will be 
directly comparable. The Forest Products Laboratory will examine the more 
important species, so that it will be possible to estimate the potential resources of the 
Empire in a way never before possible. 
Forestry offers a new vista for a small holdings’ policy : it gives, on the one hand, 
permanent and skilled workers to an industry which requires it, and on the other 
hand it gives an opportunity for earning fair wages under conditions of existence very 
much more favourable to wage earners than can be obtained in towns; it works in 
with small holdings agricultural work better than any other industry; labour is 
employed in the woods in the winter months when the small holder has less to do on 
his holding, and in the summer months the forest nurseries provide light work for 
women and children. The Forestry Commission is creating small holdings at the 
rate of 150 a year, and it will improve on that figure as time goes on. Care will be 
exercised to ensure that continuity of employment will be maintained from the 
planting period and on through the thinning period and up to the final felling. In 
the Forest of Tintern, one of the few State forests in Britain working under a regular 
forest rotation with approximately evenly distributed age classes, the number of 
employees is just one man per fifty acres. There is every hope that as rural industries" 
AR Ruthetve these 
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Bip atone N24. 
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