THE WOELD'S FOEEST SUPPLY 
25 
the trees felled is becoming smaller. Japan, even under 
its feudal lords, recognised the value of woodlands, and has 
now an excellent forestry school and a large number of 
students, and our own Government in India have a large 
staff of forest officers to look after the enormous timbered 
area of the country, whilst even a young country like 
Australia has already reserved 2,000,000 acres, although 
the speedy regeneration of the eucalypts removes a diffi- 
culty which confronts the forester having to deal with 
conifers and slow-growing timber. 
The United States, on whose forests greater inroads 
have been made than in any other country, and which are 
being used up much quicker than their natural reproduc- 
tion, have been slow to move in this matter, and even yet, 
owing to opposition by various interests, the Government 
reserves, which are chiefly in the Rocky Mountains and on 
the Pacific slope, only amount to about one-fifth of the 
total forest area, exclusive of Alaska, and sufficient 
protection is not afforded even to this. 
At the present time a commission is sitting to inquire 
into the question of afforestation in the British Isles which, 
it is hoped, may be productive of much good, for, with a 
proper system of planting on our waste lands, we might in 
time become to a considerable extent independent of foreign 
supplies. 
It is evident from what has been said that, apart 
from the national question, and the serious outlook of 
a country like our own being wholly dependent upon 
foreign supplies, a proper scheme of forestry may be 
made to pay. 
When it is remembered that the time required to produce 
a valuable hardwood or pine tree may be anything from 
40 or 50 to 150 years or more, it is quite probable that 
some of the countries which have only lately adopted 
