A certain number of land-owners are afforesting a good part
of their property, partly to escape the cost of landowner. ship ; and prObably they are doing good national service. Lord Lovat, a forester of ,fame and a patriot of sense, has recently emphasized the unrealized value of English coni- ferous timber. He gives facts and figures to prove that we could supply from home plantations a good part of the £6,000,000 a year we spend on foreign pitprops, might greatly help the railways and revive rural employment. He pleads for this to be done at once, this very month, since wood cannot be cut when the sap begins to flow. Every country- man—and indeed patriot—would rejoice if this scheme could be adopted. The nation seems to suffer from an inferiority complex in regard to home-grown timber. Owing to lack of local sawmills and schemes of transport the country is covered with unmarketable timber. It fouls the land and my own belief is that the scarcely credited increase of the bark beetle (which finds its optimum in fallen elms) is at least a strong contributory cause of the elm disease that
threatens the most general and picturesque of our country trees.
Previous page
