20 6 
NATURE NOTES 
of our colonies and dependencies, that in England, in the heart 
of the Empire, forestry would receive the attention that it 
deserves, but this is not so and the reason is easy to find. 
Britain is a moderate sized island, so is Ireland : in no part 
of either can you get further than ioo miles from the sea, if so 
far : the consequence is that the air is constantly kept moist, 
and the climate moderated and rendered more equable than it 
can be in the interior of great continents. Moreover, the climate 
is rendered the milder by the warm current of the Gulf Stream, 
which breaks upon and flows past our western shores : this 
stream brings with it warm vapours which soon precipitate in 
rain, and so it comes that for climatic purposes the 4 per cent, 
of land that we have in England covered by trees, suffices. Our 
climate is moist and mild enough, generally speaking, without 
our growing more trees than we do, still there are many rough 
or sandy spaces unsuited for grass or tillage, and deserted farms, 
that might well be turned into forest, to say nothing of the 
neglect of our orchards in many counties, where replanting is 
much needed to take the place of old and worn-out trees. 
In this connection the report of the Recess Committee on 
the establishment of a department of Agriculture and Industries 
for Ireland, made in 1896, recommends the re-afforesting of waste 
land in that country on a very large scale, and it has been pointed 
out that had the Government, at the time of the potato famine 
in 1847, purchased lands that could have been had for quite a 
nominal figure and planted them, they would now possess great 
forests, which would have benefited thousands of indigent persons 
by employing them in planting them, and would now be the 
support of many more thousands in affluence, whilst the forests 
would be a source of profit to the State, as they are in India, 
and ameliorate the climate. It has also been mentioned that 
much work in forests can be done in winter when the ordinary 
harvests are past, and there are many hands idle that usually 
find other out-of-door occupation. 
England contains no Government school of forestry as in 
other European countries, and in the United Kingdom we have 
no means of training forestry experts. In arboriculture, or the 
growing of trees for ornamental purposes, we excel all other 
people, but in sylviculture, or forestry proper, we are backward. 
Scotland pays more attention to forestry, the subject being 
forced upon her by the rigours of her climate and the bleakness 
of her hillsides, where trees for shelter are more required than in 
the southern portion of our island. In India also forestry has 
been forced upon us : there the climate was found to be going 
from bad to worse from the constant destruction of forests — 
imagine 85,000 men in one district engaged in felling, burning 
and destroying, so as to get one or two crops grown on the 
spaces cleared, — and during the last half century the matter 
has been seriously taken in hand, so that we have now an 
organised forest department of the Indian Government. The 
