The Nation's Forests The Forestry Commission's report gives an interesting
account of the use of tractor ploughs to prepare for planting sites previously regarded as unplantable. One of the results of using them has been to extend the plantable zone upward to a height, In some cases, of x,50o feet. This is a very important gain, seeing that the heights at which forests originally grew in Great Britain and still grow in comparable latitudes abroad are much greater than those at which it has hitherto been found profitable to plant. The total acreage planted by the Commissioners is now 340,000, of which nearly two-thirds are in England and Wales. In addition they have acquired control, over increasing areas of existing woodland, the latest outstanding example being Savernake Forest, near Marlborough, of which they have taken a 999 years' lease. Most of the Commissioners' plant- ings are in the stage of unproductive investment ; but thin- thus on the earlier ones already yield pit-props, of which some two million were sold last year. The problem of forest fires continues to be difficult. Caused in most instances by the careless throwing away of lighted cigarettes, they last year destroyed 2,15o acres of planting. On a rotation of 6o years this works out to 129,000 acres—an area greater than that as yet planted in the whole of Scotland.
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