REPORT ON FORESTS. 207 
M. Houba says, however, “ that one must not expect too much 
of plantings on waste-land, and that the revenues from the poor- 
lands of the Campine and Ardennes are equal to five per cent. 
on the capital invested.” (If American capitalists could make 
sure of five per cent. there would be large investments in forest 
land.) 
Heathlands, which have not been exhausted by the removal 
of the humus, have produced satisfactory forests. ‘‘ Nothing is 
sadder,” says Verstappen, ‘than to pass over certain wooded 
zones of the Campine, to-day offering a spectacle of decay which 
seens without a remedy. Where thirty years ago one saw 
superb pine groves yielding as much as the best wheat-lands of 
Hesbaye, now one sees only rare groves of third and fourth 
grade, while the greater part of the surface is covered with a 
growth not exceeding three to five meters in height.” Levasseur 
says that a good plantation of pine properly managed, well 
located, should yield, at the end of: eighty years, 27,175 francs 
‘per hectare. That is, according to our system of measurement, 
$2,174 per acre, or $27.17 per acre per year! Prof. Smets esti- 
mates a yield of from 1,500 to 4,000 francs per hectare in a 
period of 30 to 4o years for the Belgian Campine. That is 
about a yield of $4 per year per acre for this poor heathland! 
If these figures are correct, the wonder is why every inch of that 
land has not been reclaimed. 
The Scotch-pine will grow under a great variety of condi- 
tions. It is not very sensitive to frost and accommodates 
itself to low and damp places. It isa tree of the vast plains with 
siliclous bottom and deep soil. It is a species easy to satisfy and 
has been successfully transported to many countries into many 
soils. It is probably the most widely spread of all the pines. It 
is like the red-cedar of America in respect to endurance, grow- 
ing in wet and dry locations, in hot and cold, on mountains and 
in the lowlands. Very rarely, however, does it reproduce itself 
naturally. 
Here and there, at a certain depth, a bed of impermeable clay 
or heath-humus buried under eolian sand arrests the growth of 
the trees. ‘These beds do not exist everywhere and their bad 
effects may be overcome by thoroughly working and softening 
the soil. ‘This all tends to prolong the life and vigor of the tree 
