144 PHEASANTS 



of the government, and are quite beyond 

 the province of the ordinary individual 

 landowner. These millions of acres — 

 heath waste and unproductive sheepland 

 — lie ready to the nation's hand to be 

 planted by the nation for the nation's 

 good. It would be quite beyond the 

 means of the average landowner — in these 

 times when imperial taxation and local 

 burdens steadily increase at a rate per- 

 versely proportionate to the decline of 

 agricultural rents — to contemplate with 

 any equanimity the heavy capital expendi- 

 ture required to plant on a remunera- 

 tive scale, wherefrom only his descendant 

 in the second or third generation could 

 derive any benefit. 



Moreover a simple calculation suffici- 

 ently proves that the planting of any land, 

 whereof the agricultural rental exceeds 

 half-a-crown an acre, is economically un- 

 sound from a commercial point of view, 

 the eventual expectation from the timber 

 crop being swallowed up in compound 

 interest on initial expenditure and lost 



