130 SCIENCE IN FORESTRY 



production. What applies to the individual tree, 

 applies to the forest. 



The natural forest produces a large crop in a 

 very long time, and when the world had more timber 

 than the nations required this was sufficient. With 

 the industrial development of the present age, 

 however, we find that the consumption of timber 

 is in excess of nature's rate of production, and the 

 consequence is that the available timber supplies 

 are rapidly diminishing. Hitherto we have been 

 able to draw on the accumulated supplies of past 

 ages. In our own country the forests may be said 

 to have long since disappeared. Yet our island 

 climate lends itself peculiarly to tree growth, and 

 in the natural condition, perhaps all the land 

 excepting marshes and bare mountain tops was 

 covered with forest. Part of this had to make way 

 for the needs of agriculture, but much more was 

 destroyed for quite uneconomic reasons. The 

 result is, that now less than four per cent, of the 

 land surface bears woodlands, and much of that 

 is quite unworthy of the name. We are not a 

 timber producing country. Yet as a great indus.- 

 trial nation we consume vast quantities of timber 

 over 100,000 worth each day of the year. We 

 import our supplies mainly from Russia, Norway, 

 Sweden and to some extent from Canada and the 

 United States and latterly from Japan. Many 

 causes are contributing to the rapid exhaustion 

 of these supplies. Since 1860 the exports from 



