5 Conifers 
This is not because we do not use wood. On the 
contrary, we import not only wood to the value of 
£32,326,117 (1907), but about {10,000,000 of wood- 
pulp or of paper made for the most part from wood- 
pulp. 
Nor is it because the land is in any way unsuitable 
for timber. The Royal Commission which has recently 
sat upon this question estimates that there is 9,000,000 
acres of quite suitable land, chiefly “rough mountain- 
land used for grazing.” This estimate is probably far 
below the real area, but unfortunately all estimates are at 
present just guesses. If the Botanical Survey of Britain 
had been carried through, it would have been possible to 
state exactly the precise area of possible forest land. 
Dry heather moor, when not above a certain altitude, 
is generally well adapted to conifers, and there are many 
stony and barren-looking hills which are able also to 
grow good trees. But such plantations must not be 
above a certain altitude, which varies in different dis- 
tricts according to the heights of the highest hills in 
the neighbourhood. 
Does forestry then not pay in this country? The 
best British authorities have shown that land producing 
only 5s. per acre as grazing ground for sheep can be 
made to return ros, per acre when planted. Then one 
begins to wonder why it is that there are so few planta- 
tions, and why private enterprise has not grown again 
the great Silva Caledonica of ancient times. 
' The answer is, however, perfectly simple and adequate. 
Forestry as usually conducted is most uncertain. It 
cannot unhappily be denied that the scientific side of it 
has been grossly neglected in Britain, and too often 
dangerous errors and wrong practice have led to ruinous 
losses. 
But let the reader suppose himself to be twenty-one 
years of age and to have succeeded in 1909 to a large 
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