334. OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
Board of Agriculture may extend the period 
of charge for loans obtained for planting, for 
shelter, or for any beneficial purposes which will 
increase the permanent value of the land, up to 
forty years; and the rent charge made by the 
Scottish Drainage and Improvement Company to 
repay capital and interest within that maximum 
period is 44, 11s. 6d. per cent. per annum, 
payable half-yearly, for advances of £300 or 
upwards. This assistance hardly goes far enough 
to induce impecunious landowners to form eco- 
nomic woodlands on any large scale. For at 
least ten years, and often for twenty years, in 
some parts of the country, there would be no 
returns at all, or next to none, from the young 
woods. All would be outlay. And besides that, 
there is hardly any highwood crop which can be 
considered to have reached its financial maturity 
at forty years of age; hence, for timber crops, 
the maximum period of the loan might safely 
be extended so as to lighten the burden during 
the first ten or twenty years on the landowner 
desirous of making such an investment for the 
benefit of his sons or grandsons, and indirectly 
for the good of the country in general. 
