»» FORESTRY IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



All three agencies should be put into motion, and the State should 

 ordinarily restrict its action to that part which private proprietors 

 and corporations are unable or unwilling to undertake. 



There remains, however, the financial aspect of the undertaking. 

 In this place attention will be drawn to one fact, which has been 

 somewhat overlooked : The price of imported timber fell from 

 1871 to 1884 in consequence of the development of trade generally 

 and the rapid increase of the mercantile fleets. From 1884 to 1892 

 prices kept, with some oscillations, on about the same level. Then 

 a rise set in which lasted until the outbreak of the war ; during 

 that period the average price of coniferous timber and pitwood 

 rose by 30 per cent, of the price in 1892. At present prices are 

 abnormally high, and so is that of labour. What the price of 

 both may be when the effect of the war has disappeared it is 

 impossible to say, but there cannot be any doubt that they will 

 rise and fall together and in due proportion. These variations 

 will have no effect in the long run on the financial aspect of 

 forestry, and intending planters need not have any fear as regards 

 high wages of labourers, because they will be compensated by 

 corresponding higher prices of timber. 



5. The Fokest Policy of the Future. 



The forest policy of the future must be based on the facts that 

 the present production of home-grown timber is altogether 

 insufficient, that the prospect of obtaining future supplies is un- 

 certain, and that in the case of any future emergency security can 

 be obtained only by having a sufiicient stock of timber at home. 



The problem of providing adequate home supplies is divided 

 into two parts : — 



{a) The improvement of existing woods including the replanting 

 of the areas cleared during the war. 



(6) The afforestation of additional areas. 

 Beginning with the existing woods, which covered before the war 

 just over 3,000,000 acres, it is stated that about 300,000 acres were 

 cleared during the war, so that, for some time to come, the annual 

 yield will be nuicli below even the small figure which it had 

 reached before the war. Not only have mature crops been felled 

 in all parts of the country, but many thousands of acres of young 

 immature woods have been cleared for pitwood and other purposes 



