THE THREATENED TIMBER DEARTH.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR."]
cannot complain of your comment on my appeal for State assistance to ward off the threatening timber dearth that the State has not hitherto made a success of forestry in this country. But it would have more force if it were possible to point to any general success in private forestry enterprise. Unfortunately it is the verdict of experts and committees that private enterprise in the management of our woods has signally failed, and that there is little prospect of its ever effecting much. On the other hand, it is in the forests of Germany, France, and India, State-owned Or controlled, where we find the best management and soundest financial results. To quote the Irish Committee's summary of these results: "They show that (Continental State) forests managed on a strictly commercial basis give net annual returns of from 10s. to 208. per acre on the average." Though latterly the private forests of France and Germany show improved management, the history of legislative interference in their control, with other evidence, leaves no doubt that previously they were little better managed than our own woods. You refer to the bad management of the New Forest, which fortunately, under the enlightened guidance of Mr. Stafford Howard, is becoming a matter of history. It is fair to quote what Mr. Howard 'mid on this subject before the Irish Committee :—" In the New Forest and Forest of Dean there have been deficits for several years for special reasons, one being that we have such a vast quantity of timber all about the same age, planted in the last century, with a view to producing oak for the Navy. The
consequence is we have not a regular rotation In the New Forest we are somewhat hampered by aesthetic con- siderations." If any proof is required of what British State forestry can effect we have it in the splendid results attained in India, the important industry it has established and the great and growing revenue it produces,—for 1906-7 of
21,766,000 gross.—I am, Sir, &c., SCOTIA.
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