AFFORESTATION.
[To THE EDITOR OF Till .EPEOTI.TOR."] SIR,—In your leading article in last week's Spectator you object on general principles which are unquestionably sound to the important work of afforestation being undertaken by the State instead of by individual landowners. But there are special reasons why the State should at all events lead the way in this much-neglected national industry. The capital required for the installation of a forest on any large scale, for draining, fencing, and planting, is very large, and wholly unremunerative for fifteen or twenty years from its expendi- ture, besides depriving the proprietor of all other rental, agri- cultural or pastoral, during that long period. The experiment, therefore, is beyond the powers of ordinary landlords, and it is mainly for this reason that silviculture has hitherto been neglected. Further, it is essential for commercial success in the business that greatly improved methods in planting and growing should be adopted, methods for which education is still wanting in this country, and. which can scarcely be imparted except by practical experimental schools on a large scale. Nor must it be forgotten, even by those who infinitely prefer individual to Government effort, that the successful management of a forest demands a long-sustained and continuous system of renewed planting, thinning, and felling, such as is only too apt to be interrupted by the succession of a needy or care- less inheritor. The great forests of the Continent are, as Mr. Burns is aware, mostly in the bands of State or Local
Government proprietors, and to them, I fear, we must look for leading. I believe I am correct in saying that the Woods and Forests Department are prepared to justify their name by undertaking the management of an afforested estate of ten to twenty thousand acres if only the Treasury can be induced to do "the needful." Though Mr. Burns wisely recognises that forestry labour is quite unfitted for the " unemployed " of the towns, it is nevertheless true, as the Scottish Office well knows, that it would supply an enormous boon to many thousand strong and able and now partially idle hands, especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands, and it would give just that flip which is needed by crofters and small landholders by creating a demand for their occasional labour.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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