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fine column of foliage. All this means that fine park scenery is not the product of a single lifetime, reminding one of the Oxford "chestnut " which tells of an American visitor inquiring how such beautiful turf could be grown in the quads. "Well, sir, we rolls 'un and we mows 'un for a thousand year, and then it just comes. Good forestry, then, is not only consistent with the finest park scenery, but it is essential to its production. Trees are by nature gregarious for the development of their true character and utmost beauty they require in youth and middle age the discipline of close company to rear stately stems and form well-balanced heads.

343 million acres of German forest, they should yield a gross annual revenue of about £2,000,000, or a net annual profit of £1,000,000, equal to 6s. 8d. an acre.1 That British land favourable to forest growth might be made to yield far more than this may be seen from the following instance, cited by Dr Nisbet. In 1860, eight acres at Taymount were planted with Douglas fir, four years old, raised from seed produced on two trees at Scone, and larch, in the proportion to the acre of 302 Douglas fir to 908 larch. By 1880 all the larches had been thinned out, and in 1887 620 Douglas fir were felled and sold for £34. This thinning was a terrible mistake, for

the remaining 1796 threw out strong side branches to the detriment of the timber. Nevertheless, in 1900 a Perth timber-merchant offered 9d. a foot for the lot standing—the price of Scots pine at the time being 6d., of larch 1s. This offer, which was not accepted, amounted to about £1600, or £200 per acre, representing a gross rent of £5 an acre during the forty years of growth. From this must be deducted expenses of planting and thinning, and compound interest on the capital locked up; but, on the other hand, the account must be credited with the price of thinnings sold. Reckoned in another way, the gross proproduc- fit comes out higher. Dr as the Nisbet states that the annual

However, the amateur may be allowed to work his dotand-go-one in the grounds about the mansion-the "policies," as we call them in Scotland. Wood masses will be required were it only for background to the landscape or for shelter; and these, rightly managed, ought to be a source of revenue, instead of, as in almost all existing cases, one of loss. There are in the United Kingdom about 3,000,000 acres under wood, nearly all in private hands. It is pretty safe to assume, in the total absence of statistics, that the expenses of this area, including interest on capital sunk, largely exceed the revenue. Were these 3,000,000 acres as tive in proportion

1 Taking the German State forests alone, the average net yield is equal to 11s. an acre.

increment of timber from the time of sowing the seed in 1856 has averaged 238 cubic feet per acre. Reducing this by one-fifth to suit British "squareof-quarter-girth" measurement, it works out at 9d. a foot to £7 per acre per annum.

The capabilities of this wonderful tree have not yet been fairly tested in this country, but there seems to be little doubt that it is destined to effect a revolution far more complete in British forestry than that wrought by the larch in the eighteenth century. These eight acres at Taymount, and a patch of an acre and a half on the Whalley Abbey estate in Wicklow, are positively the only examples

which Dr Nisbet is able to give of the Douglas fir being submitted to forest treatment in this country. Elsewhere it has been used for ornamental effect, dotted about among other trees as our grandsires dotted silver firs. Just as the silver fir is the loftiest European tree, so the Douglas is the loftiest of American firs, and the result of such handling is the same in both cases. Silvers and Douglas outgrow all company but their own; the tops get knocked about by storms and the timber is rendered

worthless by the growth of side branches. Plant either of these trees in the way they grow naturally-in close company, covering a large extent of ground-and they will form their own effective shelter against the blast, and produce clean and readily marketable timber.

The most remarkable feature about the Douglas fir is the rapidity with which it produces commercial timber of the finest quality. Adopting Dr Nisbet's estimate of the most remunerative age for felling the principal forest trees grown under favourable conditions, viz. :—

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1 Dr Nisbet gives this (vol. i. p. 333) as a rough generalisation" of the ages at which such trees, as a crop, reach "their greatest market value"; but he seems to be reckoning upon the present peculiar condition of the market for home timber, in which such stuff as pitwood is most readily saleable. The age when the timber of the different species ought to be at full bulk and perfect maturity must be taken as much higher, viz. :—

Larch, Scots pine, and spruce

Ash

Beech and elm

Oak

Years.

80-100

80-90

90-120

120-150

16,710,788 acres of waste land in the United Kingdom, about one-fifth, say 3,300,000 acres, is fitted for profitable forestry. This is a far less sanguine calculation than has been presented in evidence before the several committees which, in recent years, have inquired into forestry matters, but it is a prudent one. Much of the land reckoned as waste is bog, which could only be prepared for planting at vast expense; and much of it lies above the 1000 feet level, beyond which good results cannot be expected in our latitude. Moreover, it is not well to undertake planting in isolated patches.

"This estimate," says Dr Nisbet, "does not include every piece of poor pasturage and apparently waste land suitable for planting, because for planting, with a fair chance of profit, it is essential to form large compact blocks of woodland. Small scattered plantations of 20, 30, 40, or 50 acres can neither be made nor managed so economically as large compact blocks of 500, 1000, or 2000 acres; for be of 500, 1000, or 2000 acres; for between sylviculture and arboriculture there is just the same sort of economic difference as exists between manufacturing on a large and on a

small scale."

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realised asset of waste land, warning us not to assume that, as has been asserted, "any land yielding a smaller net rental than 8s. an acre for agriculture or pasture will now pay better under timber." Still, the State forests of Germany, where labour is cheaper than in Britain, show a net revenue averaging over all just 11s. an acre, as going concerns, and there are many hundred thousand acres in Scotland and Ireland suitable for planting rented at from 6d. to 2s. an acre. Such land would not lie waste in Germany, where, "notwithstanding the very large acreage that is already under woodlands, every convenient opportunity is taken to convert waste lands into plantations."

It is obvious to anybody acquainted, even superficially, with land management that no ordinary landowner can contemplate planting in blocks of 500, 1000, or 2000 acres. Even if he could find the capital necessary for the expense of planting, which cannot be reckoned at less than £6 an acre, and meet the annual bill for wages, &c., which may be taken at £650 for 1000 acres,1 and at

£120 0 0

52 10 0

374 8 0

103 2 0

£650 0 0

This is assuming the employment of one man upon every hundred acres, which will be necessary until the forest is a going concern, but it is far above what is found necessary in Germany. "The extent," says Dr Nisbet, "to which, per 100 acres, labour is required in the German woodlands cannot be fixed. 1883 Danckelmann estimated that the actual cost of labour necessary in woodlands was, per acre per annum, 2.1 shillings in Prussia, 26 in Saxony, 3.7 in

In

£550 for every additional 1000 acres, he must submit to locking up all this money until the returns begin about twenty years after planting. That the investment would pay handsomely in the end may be assumed with a certainty based on the statistics of foreign forests. Upon this point we are more confident than Dr Nisbet seems to be. We agree with him that

"wildly sanguine estimates have often been made-not only long ago,

but even down to the present timeabout the profit of transforming vast stretches of waste lands into woodlands. It is easy to juggle with figures and make a plausible show of certain profit two or three generations hence, and there is a sort of fascination about calculations of this sort."

Yet I cannot share Dr Nisbet's apprehension that, supposing a forest is being managed on economic principles, there would be any difficulty in finding a profitable market for the products.

"Any great increase in the present woodland area throughout the United Kingdom must go hand in hand with the encouragement and improvement of existing wood-consuming industries and the creation and fostering of new ones before it is possible that any large investment of national capital in this direction is likely to have any fair chance of assuring direct monetary profit."

Considering that we are already buying wood and wood products from the foreigner to the tune of £32,000,000 a-year, it does not seem that there is

any lack of wood-consuming industries in Great Britain. As Dr Nisbet informs us, the chairmakers of Bucks are using more wood than the local beechwoods can supply, and depend to a large extent upon foreign imports. As to the creation of new industries, they cannot be thought of till the forest is in being. For instance, there is not a single wood-pulp factory in the United Kingdom, because there is no wood to pulp. Given the wood, and the pulping mills would follow fast enough.

"The first wood-pulp factory was started in Saxony about 1854, and the first cellulose factory about 1874; and there are now in Germany alone, to say nothing of Austria, Sweden, and Norway, over 600 pulp - mills using nearly 36,000,000 cubic feet of factories consuming about 30,000,000 wood [per annum], and 71 cellulose

cubic feet. And these are still comparatively new industries, capable of enormous expansion, and likely in time to raise the price of the softer woods suited for this trade-willow, poplar, birch, lime, and the softer conifers" (vol. i. p. 85).

In spite of the incessant and growing demand for timber in this country, the complaint is commonly heard from landowners that they cannot be sure of a market for good trees even when they have them to offer. Dr Nisbet has explained the cause of this in one of his other books:—

"Available markets cannot be utilised to the best advantage if the quantity of wood offered one year is

Alsace-Lorraine, 5.1 in Würtemberg, and 5.3 in Baden; but these data are apt to mislead, as the two last evidently include extraction (timber-slides and floating) done by Government and repaid indirectly by the buyer." But surely this is expense which must not be left out of account.

large, the next small, a third year wanting altogether, and so on irregularly. 'First a hunger, then a burst,' is bad in this as in all other

cases." 1

а

To ensure profitable trade the producer must secure proper business connection, and for that two things are necessary, as every greengrocer knows regularity of supply and uniformity of quality.

To show that sound management will ensure profitable returns from British woodland, even in the present condition of the home trade, the balancesheet of the Novar woods in Ross-shire may be cited, as

furnished from the estate office.
Novar has been more fortunate
than most other estates, in that,
from about the year 1800 down
to 1850, planting proceeded
regularly every year. Had this
been continued, we should have
had an example, unique in the
United Kingdom, of an exten-
sive woodland arranged for
systematic annual felling. Un-
luckily, no planting was done
between 1850 and 1881, after
which the present owner, Mr
Munro Ferguson, M.P., resumed
the work. In spite of this break,
which has interfered with the
regular felling, the returns show
a considerable annual profit.

Average annual income from, and expenditure on, Novar woods during
five years 1895-99.

Realised by the sale of 93,537 cubic feet (average annual gross revenue) £8368
Deduct outlay on above, and on 13,751 cubic feet used

on the estate

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