ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 85 
of going chiefly to Russia and Scandinavia, but 
much more money would also be circulated in 
the formation, tending, and reaping of the crops 
of timber, in its transport and conversion, and 
in its distribution to the places of consumption. 
With so much land of poor quality lying uncul- 
tivated in many parts of the British Isles, the 
apathy shown towards Forestry in Britain is one 
of the things that it is impossible to understand. 
Our humid climate has saved us from the agri- 
cultural consequences of excessive clearance of 
woodlands; but we are now probably very soon 
about to reap commercially what we have sown 
in the wholesale destruction of the crops of 
timber with which the British Islands were once 
quite as richly endowed by nature as were the 
foreign countries that have better husbanded 
their natural resources in woodlands. 
Heroic measures to replace the woodlands 
destroyed can only be undertaken on a sufficiently 
large scale by receiving considerable encourage- 
ment and assistance from the State, whose attitude 
has hitherto been extremely unsympathetic in this 
respect. But something, at any rate, can with- 
out much difficulty be done to remedy existing 
