THE UTILISATION OF LAND UNSUITABLE FOR AGRICULTURE. 23 



than insect pests and tree diseases (except in the case of the 

 Larch disease), for the damage from these causes is not so great 

 in this country as some seem to think. When you see, what 

 may often be seen, fewer trees planted to the acre at the outset 

 than should be on the ground at the end of fifteen or twenty years, 

 when a half or third of these consist of useless " nurses " which 

 are never expected to pay the cost of removal, when pruning 

 and thinning are frequent and severe, when needless draining 

 is done, and expensive live fences maintained, and rabbits pre- 

 served, you may bid farewell to any prospect of profit, and expect 

 loss about as surely as anything can be expected. But all these 

 can be avoided, and when they are avoided I have no doubt 

 whatever that good crops of timber can be produced more easily 

 and more certainly than a great many garden and farm 

 crops, making allowance, of course, for the difference of time 

 required. 



The wants of forest -trees are few and simple, and the opera- 

 tions of practical forestry are also so easy that any intelligent 

 labourer may carry them out with no more training or instruc- 

 tion than can be given him by a competent head forester from 

 time to time. Hitherto it has not been the humble working 

 woodman that has been to blame, but his master and employer. 

 In this connection I may mention an extremely interesting 

 example. I have on hand for sale, at this time, twenty acres of 

 Larch, situated about 1,200 feet above the sea, on one of the 

 poorest sites and soils imaginable, heather land before it was 

 planted over sixty years ago. This land was owned by a small 

 farmer, who planted it with Larch, and whose grandson is now 

 offering the timber for sale because he can get more for 

 the land for grouse, and because the trees have ceased growing. 

 Still the Larch, though small, owing to the situation, could 

 have been sold more than once for about £1,400 or more, stand- 

 ing, being near consumers, which represents a rent for the land 

 greatly in excess of anything that could have been got for such 

 land for any other purpose during the sixty years. The twenty 

 acres contain a little under 7,000 trees and poles, or over 300 

 trees to the acre, averaging about feet cubic each. The inter- 

 esting fact about this wood is that it has never been looked after 

 by a forester, and all the thinning it has been subjected to 

 has been the occasional removal of a few of the worst trees for 



