WOODS OF KENT. 



65 



A word as to Oaks. From time to time it is as well to thin 

 out the trees from 50 to 100 feet apart ; but the value of Oak 

 timber and bark is heavily discounted by the importation of foreign 

 timber and new methods of tanning, so that this bark is of 

 secondary importance. I offer these few remarks in the hope 

 that it may induce some to utilise that vast acreage of land 

 now arable which, owing to the present distressed state of agri- 

 culture and to foreign competition, cannot be made to pay with 

 cereals, and I am not alone in giving an opinion that well- 

 managed woods will yet pay well for attention. 



Discussion. 



The Chairman (Sir Alexander Arbuthnot) said before speak- 

 ing on the subject of the Conference he would like to read a 

 telegram which had been received from their valuable Secretary, 

 Mr. Wilks, whose absence they all regretted. Mr. Wilks had 

 been very seriously ill, and a few days before that meeting under- 

 went a painful operation. The telegram read : " Greetings to all. 

 Progressing most favourably. Try voice to-morrow." (Cheers.) 

 Sir Alexander went on to say that he wished Mr. Dyer could 

 have been in the chair at that, the second of their meetings that 

 day, because Mr. Dyer was far more competent than he was to 

 draw attention to the points which had been raised in Mr. 

 Forbes's interesting paper. He thought they would all feel that 

 his lecture was a most valuable one, and he had no doubt that 

 those present that day, and many who were not present, would 

 be very greatly interested in reading it when it appeared in the 

 Journal. If he w T ere to express an opinion on Mr. Forbes's 

 lecture, it would be that the observations contained in it would 

 be most valuable to planters. The paper contributed by Mr. 

 Simpson in the morning was a valuable one, but if it proved 

 anything, it proved one thing, viz. the enormous difficulty of the 

 question of forestry in England considered from a commercial 

 point of view. When considering the subject, he thought they 

 should not leave out of sight altogether the risk, as time goes on, 

 of our coal supply greatly diminishing and our wood supply 

 diminishing at the same time, and he thought that arrangements 

 should be made by which the State should, as in some Con- 

 tinental countries, and as Englishmen are now doing in India, 



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