1863 it was 10/- per acre; from 1884 
to 1893 it was 18/6 per acre; and by 
1900 it had risen to 22/6 per acre. 
26 
Taking these facts in conjunction, we . 
See that between 1817 and 1900 the 
average receipts per cubic foot of wood 
have risen by about 114 per cent, while 
the net receipts per acre have risen 
during the same period by over 460 
per cent. “Surely,” as Professor Sch- 
lich remarks on concluding this analy- 
sis, “here is an incontrovertible proof 
of what scientific and systematic mau- 
agement of woodlands can achieve.” 
I have probably said enough to con- 
vince most people that forestry properly 
conducted affords an extremely lucrative 
form of investment either to the State or 
the individual, and that the successful 
experience of other countries fully justi- 
fies us in making experiments on similar 
lines here. The reason for such an un- 
dertaking is, of course, the ever-growing 
certainty that our timber supply is be- 
ing rapidly reduced, and that we already 
find it unequal to the demand. And if, 
after we have considered the risks and 
perils involved in Deforestation, as al- 
ready set forth in my earlier articles— 
the destruction of soil. the flooding of 
rivers, the deterioration of climate, and 
the reduction of the country’s productive 
powers—if, beyond all this, some further 
argument jis needed to strengthen the 
case for Afforestation, we may find it in 
the large pecuniary profits always 
secured by either States. corporations, or 
private individuals who have undertaken, 
under favourable conditions, 
tive work of tree planting. 
PRIVATE ENTERPRISE. 
the luecra- 
It may be as well to remark here that. 
so far as the general benefit to the coun. 
try is concerned, this can be secured 
equally well whether the trees are plant- 
ed by the State or by private individuals. 
And as an encouragement to those per- 
sons who may feel inclined to make prac- 
tical use of the experience of other coun- 
tries in this matter, I may point out 
that by far the best financial results 
that have been secured from tree plant- 
ing in England and America are dye 
more or less to private initiative. [y 
Perthshire not long since, a plantation 
of Douglas fir just forty years olq. 
was valued at £200 an acre to the enter- 
prising grower. But forty years is g 
long time to wait, and pecuniary results 
can be secured by judicious management 
in a much shorter period than this, Ip 
Kansas, we are told by Mr. T. H. Will, 
secretary of the American Forestry As- 
sociation, a catalpa plantation, 10 years 
old, has been valued at £40 per ACTe ; 
another in Nebraska, 14 years old, gaye 
a net return of £37 per acre; another 
also in Nebraska, 16 years old, gave a 
net return of £31 per acre. Cedar planta- 
tions, twenty-five years old, produced £49 
per acre in the United States, and Buro- 
pean larch, of the same age, is worth 
from £40 to £60 an acre. A mixed plan- 
tation, started by a director of one of 
the Western railways in Kansas on two 
square miles of waste land, after 25 
years’ growth, yielded more than £25,000 
worth of timber to the company in one 
year. Another plantation, owned by 
another railroad company, has been de- 
scribed by Professor Gifford. of Cornell 
University. Within twenty-five years 
this area of 400 acres could show a clear 
net profit of £28 per acre, and a gross 
value of nearly £79 an acre. These 
figures should be sufficient to impress the 
ordinary commercial imagination deeply 
enough. If any of my readers would 
prefer an illustration taken from nearer 
home, T may quote an interesting case 
from Australia. Near Creswick, in Vic- 
toria, there is some wretchedly poor 
land, which has been planted with several 
varieties of pine. “The particular hill- 
side chosen,’ we are told, “is lightly 
covered with a lifeless clay soil, often so 
scanty as to lay bare the sandstone. 
The natural vegetation was of the most 
meagre and yalueless kind. In the early 
days miners riddled the area for gold, 
and when the officers of the Government 
took charge it was a_hillocky waste.” 
About 700 acres of this very unpromising 
