COMMONPLACE NOTES. 



391 



COMMONPLACE NOTES. 

 By the SjjceEtary, Supeeintendent, and Editor. 

 Estate Duty. 



We have received the following note from the Secretary of the Eoyal 

 English Arboricultural Society, and have no doubt many Fellows will 

 value the important information it contains : — ■ 



" In the April 1911 issue of the ' Quarterly Journal of Forestry,' 

 the official organ of the Eoyal English Arboricultural Society, there 

 appeared correspondence between the President, Mr. E. E. Pratt, and 

 the Estate Duty Office on the question of estate duty on timber. In 

 Section 61 (5) of the Finance Act 1910 the estate duty is payable on 

 'the net moneys after deducting all necessary outgoings. ' This was 

 held by the Estate Duty Office to include ' the expenses of the sale, 

 felling, and drawing out of the timber, and of restoring fences, ditches, 

 roads and gates injured by the drawing out of such timber.' 



" It was pointed out by Mr. Pratt that if an owner is desirous of 

 maintaining his woods in an economically sound condition, he must 

 obviously have to replant the thinned out timber grounds, and that 

 such cost should be allowed as a deduction. The reply was to the 

 efiect that this cost was not allowed as a deduction against Estate Duty 

 or Succession Duty, and that this view would be enforced in a Court 

 of Law. 



^' Since the receipt of this ruling, liowever, the Society has received 

 intimation from the Estate Duty Office that it is now agreed that 

 ' the expense of replanting timber sold and felled will be allowed as a 

 necessary outgoing to the maintenance of a timber estate.' 



" This is an important point and must give encouragement to the 

 desire for private economic afforestation. It is also an achievement 

 for the Eoyal English Arboricultural Society of which the President 

 has every right to feel proud, and a concession which will be appre- 

 ciated by every tree grower." 



^ ' Y AG ARIES OF TEMPERATURE. 



British gardeners are constantly complaining of the weather and of 

 rapid variations of temperature. "What would they say to the state 

 of things disclosed by the following extract of a letter from a glorious 

 garden in Bulgaria, where the collection of plants is almost, if not 

 indeed quite, equal to any to be found in Europe? "What extra- 

 ordinary weather you must have had in England ! Here also it has 

 been the same. Then came a deep snowstorm, so heavy that even 

 large chestnuts were split in two by the weight of snow on their 

 \ leaves. Then followed some days of frost and cold at night, and the 

 variations of temperature were so interesting that I send you them- — 



