FORESTRY AND AGRICULTURE COMPARED. 29 



sory produce. And yet, under certain conditions, forestry may 

 be more desirable than agriculture. What these conditions are 

 will be indicated in the following remarks : — 



(1) Foodstuffs cannot be produced in profitable quantity and 

 for any length of time without manuring and intense working of 

 the soil so as to produce and maintain those physical and chemical 

 conditions which are essential for obtaining a full crop. Field 

 crops must be cultivated in rotation, because different crops make 

 different demands on the more important nourishing substances 

 in the soil. Trees are far less exacting in this respect, especially as 

 regards the rarer and more important mineral substances ; more- 

 over, trees with their deep-going roots possess the faculty of 

 procuring mineral substances from the subsoil, which would not 

 be accessible to ordinary field crops. For these reasons forestry 

 can be successfully carried on without manuring in localities which 

 are unfit for the cultivation of field crops. As a consequence, 

 the more fertile lands are allotted to the cultivation of field 

 crops, and forestry must generally be satisfied with the poorer 

 classes of soil, the rougher climates, and the slopes in hilly locali- 

 ties. Only grazing grounds may compete with forestry in such 

 cases, and it depends on local conditions whether the one or other 

 is preferable. Only little exacting species of trees can be grown 

 on mountain and heath lands in Britain to begin with, such as 

 pines. They can, however, be followed by more exacting species 

 when the soil has been improved by continued protection and 

 the accumulation of leaf mould. 



(2) In forestry the proprietor has to reckon with long periods 

 of time, and newly created forests do not yield a return until after 

 the lapse of a considerable number of years. The length of that 

 period depends on a variety of conditions, such as the species, 

 the yield capacity of the locaUty, and the method of treatment. 

 In a few cases, as in the culture of willows for basket work, returns 

 may begin after a year or two, but such cases form a very small 

 percentage of the whole. In other coppice woods returns may 

 commence after about 8 or 10 years, and in the case of timber 

 production thinnings do not commence until after 15 to 30 years, 

 according to species, the first thinnings being generally of small 

 value. Final cuttings in timber forests rarely come earlier than 

 after 40 years, and they may take 100 and more years. In 



