58 



FLORA AND SYLVA. 



per acre, which gave practically £2 5s. per acre per 

 annum for land which, from an agricultural point 

 of view, would not have been worth 5s. per acre. 

 The Chairman (Sir Charles Philipps) said that few 

 more practical resolutions had been brought before 

 the council. Of his own experience he knew that a 

 large portion of the land in Wales, and particularly 

 in Pembrokeshire, was only suited for tree cultiva- 

 tion. 



Proposals. — This is an instance among many of 

 what is lost to the country owing to the apathy of 

 our Government. The real trouble is that it does 

 nothing at all to help forestry, such as is done in 

 other countries. In France anyone who plants is 

 exempted from taxes for a number of years until the 

 wood has some value — a very wise encouragement 

 on the part of the State. In this country even the 

 Government's own waste lands are neglected, and 

 very often left bare as a desert ; but in France and 

 Germany the woodland country, not only the State's 

 own but everybody's woods, are considered an inte- 

 rest of the State. People say — and it looks like truth 

 — that Royal Commissions are only an excuse for 

 doing nothing ; but look at the dreadful waste of 

 time and the expense of the mountain giving birth 

 to its mouse ! 



The Commission recommends the establishment 

 of professorships at Oxford and Cambridge — places 

 already overdone with professors. As the only 

 place yet discovered for the training of good sailors 

 is the sea, so the forest is the best school we can 

 ever find for foresters. There are large areas in our 

 country, like the New Forest, which might well be 

 chosen for this purpose, and, failing these, wooded 

 districts like those that occur in certain parts of 

 Sussex, Hampshire, and Buckinghamshire would 

 be far better for a forest school than any town. To 

 place a college for teaching forestry in a city like 

 Nancy, with its pokey botanic garden of labelled 

 trees, may have its uses, but is not the best way. A 

 forest school should be within sound of the music 

 of the Pines. We doubt the utility of a university 

 for teaching forest planting. In every country the 

 best results in forests are got from native trees or 

 trees from near regions. To get good growth from 

 native trees we are no more in want of college ex- 

 hortations than the waves on the shore. There 

 must be the will to plant and protect the little trees, 

 and, given this, it is not easy to stop their growth. 

 One of the most remarkable things about afforest 

 in fertile countries like our islands is the astonishing 

 growth after the first few years' start. 



Wales and Ireland. — The report favours the esta- 

 blishment of teaching centres in England and Scot- 

 land, whilst ignoring the claims of Ireland and 

 Wales. Many parts of England and Scotland are 

 bare enough of forest, but Ireland and Wales are 



worse off. If we climb up on Cader Idris, we may 

 see through, perhaps, a rift in the clouds the hills 

 stretching back one after the other in the dim dis- 

 tance, treeless as the backs of great mammoths. In 

 Ireland, whether we look over the Bog of Allan or 

 on the hills from the Galtees to the Mourne Moun- 

 tains, it is the same desolate surface. Should we 

 ever have a forest organisation in the feeblest degree 

 resembling that which obtains in other countries, 

 there ought to be a forest officer for such important 

 regions as Ireland and Wales, as probably no wealth 

 that these countries now possess would be greater 

 than that which would result from good planting 

 of all the waste and inferior land. 



Beauty from planting. — It would be too much to 

 expect these Royal Commissioners to enter mto this 

 aspect of the question, yet it is important to con- 

 sider it, apart from other good reasons. The flow of 

 visitors from our colonies and from other countries 

 should make the beauty of these islands a very im- 

 portant consideration for us. The natural landscape 

 is so good that the absence of woods on the barer and 

 higher moorland and mountain ground is a serious 

 blemish. One of the things that has struck us most 

 is the good effects that result in Germany and Aus- 

 tria from the cresting of the high hills and poor 

 ground with evergreen woods. The same plan 

 would add enormously to the landscape and sylvan 

 beauty of our country, and this without lessening 

 in any way the value of the timber crop. We have 

 also to think of all the beneficent results in warmth 

 and shelter and the holding of springs and rains that 

 result from good planting. Living in a cold, cheer- 

 less climate of some months of winter, the shelter 

 of the evergreen woods is so much the more precious 

 to us. 



Counties Interest in the Work. — May we suggest 

 the good that the now organised county councils 

 might do in this way ? W T hy, in counties like Hamp- 

 shire, Surrey, and Sussex, abounding in heaths and 

 moors, should not the councils plant a portion of 

 these as an example, choosing in each case the best 

 trees for the soil — Pines on Surrey heaths, Oaks in 

 the weald, and Beech on the chalk ; it would be an 

 object-lesson and cost them nothing for the land 

 and little for the care beyond that involved in the 

 exclusion for a time of browsing animals. As some 

 counties and many districts often have peculiarities 

 of soil, the best way to illustrate their successful 

 planting would be by practical essays in each place. 

 A little money spent in that way would, we think, 

 be much more effective than lectures on the subject. 



As a contrast to our Government's apathy, we 

 print the following circular (No. 2 1) of the Forestry 

 Division of the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture. In it will be seen a commonsense way of 

 doing some good to forest lands, even more effec- 



