BRITISH WOOD SUPPLY 95 



Great Britain. — ^In Great Britain the abundance of coal renders 

 us independent of wood as fuel, and our geographical position so 

 facilitates the importation of timber that we have to a great extent 

 neglected our woodlands as a source of profit, while our mild insular 

 cHmate has enabled us to overlook the hygienic importance of forests. 

 There is accordingly little more than 3 milHon acres of woods and 

 forests in the United Elingdom, or only 4 per cent, of the entire 

 area, a lower percentage than that of any other European state, 

 except Portugal, while this country stands pre-eminent as the 

 greatest importer of timber, exceeding 300 million cubic feet, or, 

 including paper-pulp, gums, bark, and other forest produce, an 

 annual value exceeding 35 miUions sterHng. ISTo complete statistics 

 are available as to our consumption of home-grown timber ; but it 

 probably does not exceed 2 milhon tons. Special local demand is 

 to some extent met by local supply, as, for instance, in the case of 

 the bobbin-wood in the cotton-mill districts, pit-props in the 

 Scottish mining area, and the Beech of the Chilterns, from 12,000 

 to 15,000 loads of which are used annually in the Buckinghamshire 

 chair-making industry, by which some 50,000 families are supported. 

 Of our imports, over five millions sterling is the value of the timber 

 received from Canada, and even greater amounts from Sweden and 

 Kussia. 



The United Kingdom imported timber to the following values 

 in the years 1898, 1899, and 1900 from 





1898 



1809. 



1900 



Eiissia, - 



£4,645,549 



£4,957,001 



£5,993,377 



Swedea aiid"\ 

 Norway, / 



6,600,283 



6,889,857 



/5,681.274 

 U,934,171 



Germany, 



660,446 



606,230 



727,842 



United States, 



2,078,012 



2,421,100 



3,360,466 



India, - 



620,095 



626,101 



731,842 



Canada, - 



4,342,244 



4,751,069 



5,243,496 



Other countries, 



1,000,050 

 £19,946,679 



1,277,568 

 £21,528,926 



1,478,759 



Total 



£26,151,104 



Besides furniture- 









woods and veneers, 



646,075 



659,312 



722,460 



and Mahogany, 



691,220 



693,949 



820.520 



Sir J. F. L. RoUeston, M.P., in his presidential address to the 

 Surveyors' Institution in November, 1901, said : 



" Before leaving the subject of land and its future, I should like to say that of all 

 its products the only one, the value of which appears to be in the ascending scale, is 

 timber. In the midland counties I have been furnished with accounts of timber sales 

 at which single Oak trees have realized up to £100, while other woods are command- 

 ing good prices, and poles and thinnings are readily sold. There is a reason for this. 

 The great onslaught that has been made on the virgin forests of the world, from the 



