82 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
pays, and principally to foreign countries, no less 
than between eighteen and nineteen million pounds 
sterling for pines and fir timber which could 
quite well be grown in Great Britain and Ireland. 
There are some sixteen million acres, now prac- 
tically unproductive, available for this purpose ; 
and if our existing woods and forests were 
managed on business principles, and State en- 
couragement were given for making large planta- 
tions under economical management, Britain might 
in the future be self-supporting as to all the coni- 
ferous wood required for building purposes. 
In Britain, Forestry on business principles must 
soon pay better than ever it has done since the 
changes consequent on the great revolution in 
communications and commerce effected by rail- 
ways and steamships. The rapid commercial deve- 
lopment and the ever-growing expansion of trade 
in America and Germany, our greatest commercial 
rivals, are bringing an influence to bear on the 
great timber markets of the world which has 
already begun to cause the price of timber to 
rise. And this rise in the price of timber will 
not be merely temporary, it will be permanent 
and progressive, 
