2 UTILITY OF FORESTS TO A NATION 



honeysuckle, and so' on ; the beautiful copses so 

 common in Britain, — they all hold a place of their 

 own in our hearts. But the raison d'etre of these 

 woodlands has been primarily connected with 

 providing shelter for the crops or stock of the farm, 

 for sport or for amenity purposes. They are a part 

 of our country, of ourselves, and there is no reason 

 why they should not remain with us in reason. But 

 we did not think it necessary to grow woods for 

 purely commercial reasons — ^that is, for the sake of 

 the timber and pit wood and paper pulp they would 

 yield. We obtained our requirements of these 

 commodities by importing them from abroad, and 

 reUed on the Navy being able to safeguard these 

 imports. 



And we discovered too late that we were hving 

 in a fool's paradise of our own construction. The 

 nation as a nation had forgotten all its forefathers 

 had known about forestry ; and even if they had not 

 done so, much of that knowledge would have proved 

 useless to them, for modern requirements and con- 

 ditions have to a great degree completely changed. 



Now, it is useless to expect a pubhc opinion to form 

 amongst a people and harden into a temper which 

 will see that it obtains what it realizes to be an 

 obvious economic need — a necessity for its well- 

 being, even its preservation — vinless that opinion 

 has been formed by a matured understanding of 

 its requirements. In this question of forestry such 

 a pubUc opinion has been entirely lacking in the 

 past. No effort, no genuine widespread effort, has 

 been made to establish such an opinion. It is true 



