HARD WOODS 167 



suggested, further consideration, is whether the 

 1,770,000 acres suggested fully meets with the re- 

 quirements of the future. Whether it will enable 

 us to have a definite hold on the markets. Whether 

 it will really result in solid advantages to the rural 

 districts ; whether it will save to any appreciable 

 extent the large sums of money we shaU have to 

 pay for dearer imports. Whether forty years hence 

 we shall not find ourselves forced to throw away 

 other £37,000,000 and more to pay for the import 

 of timber from forests under systematic management 

 which is all the market will then be supplying. 

 Whether, in fact, so small a scheme, worked on its 

 own merits, is worth the outlay and trouble it will 

 cause, considering the comparatively small amounts 

 of timber it will ensure to the country, and the com- 

 paratively small head of population it will affect. 

 The Forestry Sub-Committee obtained their area 

 as follows : — ^Allowing for three years' (the estimated 

 war period) emergency fellings, during which five 

 times the normal yield would be cut without abso- 

 lutely ruining the forests, one-fifth of the area which 

 would give us our 1913 import figure {i.e. 9,000,000 

 acres) was taken, or 1,770,000 acres to be afforested. 

 For hard woods, which on an average produce about 

 35 cubic feet to the acre, and require a better soil 

 to grow in, the same method of calculation gives us 

 100,000 acres as the area required. Important as 

 this latter crop is, and necessary as it will be to 

 maintain an adequate area of some of our finer 

 hard woods in the country, this problem is not so 

 serious as that of the conifer woods, which form the 



