AFFORESTATION.
[To THE EDITOR or THE SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—The most unwise words I have hitherto read on this question are those which appear over the name of Mr. Barbour in the Spectator of February 13th, though I do not know what nonsense may still be in store for us.
We are not, forsooth, to plant the dreary bogs of Ireland, or the bare mountains of Wales, or the treeless down country of England, because in America and Canada and British East Africa there is so much tree ground! Mr. Barbour apparently would not mind bringing a tree across a continent and ocean which can be grown as well at home! There is no better ground for woods anywhere than in Britain, for reasons which need not be specified here. It is better than in Central Europe, because, in addition to our native trees, which must always be our mainstay, one can grow in the South of England, and even in Scotland, the trees of North-West America. There is no finer tree growth anywhere.
We should plant national forests because it is the nation's business to secure a great national property. It is the best possible work one can do on bare, stony, or otherwise useless land, unfit for the plough, or useless for other reasons: Therefore the great neighbouring countries in like conditions to ours, like France and Germany, are quite right in having large areas of country under forest. It is such an important matter that it cannot be left to private effort and to the fluctuations of culture in the open land. Where would France be without her national forests P I once went to Paris with an Englishman—a tree-lover, too—who said there were no fine trees in France. The next day 1 took him to the forest of Melly, and he saw so many noble oaks there that heard no more of there being no fine trees in France. The work is worth doing for its beauty alone, as witness the fine effect of the Bavarian and Bohemian wooded highland above the cultivated plain, and is such healthy work for a fine race of men, too, and in the winter when work on the bare ground is so little. We have evidence already in the forests of Northern France and Germany of most successful and profit, able planting. There is no need to begin in a hurry; the conditions should be thoroughly studied beforehand. There is no need to spend many millions at first, but begin on two or three instructive examples of, say, seashore, down, and bog- planting. What an advantage to our vast down country in Wilts, Sussex, and Hants to have a national forest showing trees that do not fear the chalk. One strong reason for planting is that no other use we can make of the land is so profitable, as we have already proof in England, alight as the work is.
Across the Channel there is a beech forest not far from Rouen—Lyons le Forilt—in which many thousands of acres give a good profit to the State, and are a fine example of planting in chalky land, of which we have so much in Britain. Time counts can little in a nation's work, and even an individual dan raise sheltering woods in a dozen years. The natural beauty of these islands is a national asset which can be increased by forest planting, and there is a vast amount of country which can be gradually made beautiful in this way. It is a work worthy of the
nation, and a disgrace to ns and our rural economy that it has not been begun already. Mr. Barbour is right abont taxation. There should be no taxation of a private individual who plants in a spirited way entil the wood begins to be profitable, and this I believe is the case in France.—I am, Sir, Sae,
Gravetye, Sussex. W. ROBINSON.
[we yield to none in our desire to maintain the beauty of these islands, but to advocate a speculation in timber which will cost first and last some £450,000,000, on aesthetic grounds, seenes to us little short of madness. Why should we suppose that the State will be able to make a profit out of so difficult a business as timber-growing when it cannot manage a com- p1arativel4 simple undertaking like the telegraphs, where it " a complete monopoly, without a yearly loss P—En. Spectator.]
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