70 Distribution of Chief Forms of Vegetation 



naturally deters the landowner, whose liquid capital 

 resources are limited, from embarking on schemes of 

 serious forest development, the monetary return from 

 which would only benefit his grandsons and great-grand- 

 sons. The State might, no doubt, do a great deal more 

 than it does by properly developing the few forests it 

 already possesses, and by acquiring suitable land for 

 afforestation. The characteristic English distrust of the 

 scientific expert, and an unwillingness to embark on far- 

 reaching schemes except under the pressure of absolute 

 necessity, are largely responsible for our failure to develop 

 the country in this direction. There are however signs of 

 an improvement in this respect; meanwhile the majority 

 of our woodlands are from the forester's point of view 

 a scandal and a disgrace. 



The south-eastern corner of England, one of the most 

 backward parts of the country in the matter 

 Abundance pf forestry, is, curiously enough, by far the 

 in the south- richest in woodland. Kent, Surrey, Sussex, 

 east. Hampshire and Berkshire, comprising be- 



tween them 3,886,296 acres of land and 

 water, had in 1905, the date of the last return, no less 

 than 448,540 acres of woodland, equal to 11 '5 per cent., 

 or more than double the percentage for England as a 

 whole, and constituting more than a quarter of the whole 

 area of English woodland. This preponderance in wood- 

 land is due partly, though by no means wholly, to the 

 extensive heath woods developed on the light sands of the 

 Weald, of the Lower Greensand, and of the Eocene series. 

 Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire are the English 

 counties poorest in woodland, together having 

 Poverty of only r4 per cent, of their areas occupied by 

 andthe^ ^ woods and plantations. This is partly due 

 Midlands. to the fact that these two counties contain 



a large part of the woodless fenland. The 

 whole of East Anglia, Lincolnshire, the Bast Riding of 



