Webster's Practical Forestry

CHAPTER XXXIV. Afforesting Waste Lands and the Financial Returns

AFFORESTING WASTE LANDS AND THE FINANCIAL RETURNS THEREFROM 282

INDEX 295

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE Arrangement of Plantations 33 Band and Connecting-Rod 166 Barking Tools 222 Beam Tree in London 103 Beech Tree 50 Blasting and Burning Tree Roots 273 Bracing a Tree 165 Cricket Bat Willow 55 Elm Tree Destroyer 199 Faulkner’s Transplanting Machine 140 Felling Tools 143 Goat Moth 201 Hedging Tools 185 Larch Canker 213 Measuring the Height of Trees 271 Method of Levelling 39 Oak Fences 262 Plan of Nursery 27 Plane Tree in Regent’s Park 99 Polyporus Sulphureus 219 Polyporus Squamosus 216 Pruning Tools 153 Pruning, Bad effects of 155 Rustic Wooden Fence, Strong Mortised Fence, Strong Paling Fence 262 Sawn Wooden Fence 261 Section of Charcoal Pit 229 Savin Juniper as a Town Shrub 108 Slate Fences 259 Spirit-Level 39 Stone and Wire Fence 257 Tools used in Planting 43 Tools used in Draining 37 Tools required in Nursery 29 Tools for Fencing 264 Tree Guards 266 Weymouth Pine at Gwydyr Castle 61 Wire Fence with Wooden Posts 263 Willow Beetle 197 Wood Leopard Moth 203 Witch’s Broom on Willow 209, 210

WEBSTER’S PRACTICAL FORESTRY

CHAPTER I. Forestry and the War

FORESTRY AND THE WAR

During the war, and for long afterwards, there is bound to be a dearth of foreign timber, with the result that our home supplies will be taxed to the utmost. This, indeed, is already the case, and never before in the history of our country has the demand for British-grown timber been greater or prices higher than at the present time.

Plantations in England and Scotland are being cut down wholesale by the Government, while felling on private estates is going on with such rapidity that in a couple of years at most there is bound to be a dearth of all home-grown timber, and of pitwood in particular.

In the aggregate, our supplies are by no means great, the total area at present under woodlands being only a little over three million acres, to which, however, must be added the amount of field and hedgerow timber—a by no means inconsiderable quantity. Of Plantation timber much is, however, of very inferior quality and only suitable for rough fencing and mining purposes, and this applies generally to that grown throughout England, Wales and Ireland. In Scotland, however, there are large areas of coniferous woods that were planted for purely economic purposes which will yield a certain amount of valuable timber for pit-props and other immediate requirements. The felling of Scotch, Spruce, and coniferous trees will, however, be a blessing in disguise, for of late years both demand and price for this particular class of timber have been by no means great and have hardly warranted the owners of vacant land in undertaking the much-needed extension of our woodlands. Larch, on the other hand, is scarce and always in demand at a highly remunerative price, as also are Ash, Oak and Beech of large size and good quality.

It is useless to go into the question of how long our home supplies of timber will last, this depending largely on the volume of foreign importations and the duration of the war, but, judging from present demands, three years will find our plantations in a more or less depleted condition. The main question we have to consider and decide, without delay, is how our cut-over plantations are to be replaced by the replanting of exhausted woodlands and afforesting some of the waste lands of our country.

Continental experience has demonstrated that, from a commercial point of view at least, State-owned forests are preferable to such as are owned either by public bodies or by private individuals. The resources and continuity of a nation will always make the State the best custodian of forest property; indeed, only the State can acquire the necessary land on the most favourable terms, and in sufficient quantity for the purposes of extensive afforestation. Private individuals—or, indeed, public bodies—labour under many disadvantages in this respect, not the least being the long period required—in most cases from fifty to sixty years—before the money expended in planting can be even partially recovered.

Contrary to the conditions obtaining in the raising of agricultural crops, long periods have to elapse before the forestry harvest can be reaped. It will be obvious, therefore, that extensive tree planting is quite beyond the power of the private individual unassisted. It is a State business, in which systematic methods of cultivation, and large wooded areas are first necessities; and, unfortunately, in this country commercial forestry is but little understood—in fact, it may be described as an unknown industry.

Extensive plantations of from a thousand to several thousand acres each, in compact blocks, are required, for it is only in dealing with such areas that the planting, tending, thinning, and conversion of the timber can be most economically and profitably carried out. From the purely economic point of view, the many small plantations dotted over the face of our country are worse than useless, though exceptions might be noted, especially in Scotland, where a few woods are planted and managed on a commercial basis.

With compact blocks of forest 2,000 to 4,000 acres in extent, and with timber crops of mainly the same species in each, a continuity of supplies could be guaranteed, which under existing circumstances is quite out of the question. In many outlying districts all over the country that are far removed from road and rail it is difficult—in some cases impossible—to dispose of the usually small amount of timber that is periodically cut down; but were large quantities of the same kind and a continuity of supply ensured, merchants would be tempted to make special transit and other arrangements, as well as to offer a remunerative price for the timber, while railway companies would no doubt provide cheaper facilities for its transport.

More than once I have been asked by owners of woodlands to recommend buyers of good Larch, Ash, and other timber, the demand for which far exceeds the supply; but after negotiating have invariably been told by the merchants that the quantity offered was too small to allow of special facilities for delivery being provided, the timber being far removed from road and rail, but that if a specified number of trees could be guaranteed annually for a number of years they were quite prepared to buy. Such cases occurred in the South and West of Ireland, and in remote parts of Wales and Scotland. These, then, are cases in which a continuity of supply—such as would be quite possible if an extensive scheme of afforesting was carried out—would ensure speedy sales at fair rates in places where at present it is difficult, if not impossible, to dispose of the small quantities of timber, even at ruinously low prices.

The question, then, before the nation is: How, and by whom, is afforestation to be carried out on a scale commensurate with our necessities as by far the largest timber-importing country in the world?—larger, indeed, than all the countries of Europe put together. In answer, and without the slightest hesitation, I would say that the State should acquire and plant suitable lands at the rate of 40,000 acres annually for a period of twenty-five years, or 1,000,000 in all.

When we consider that the total area of woodlands in this country is only a little in excess of 3,071,000 acres, that fully 17,000,000 acres of waste lands exist, and that we annually import over 10,000,000 tons of timber at a cost of about £25,000,000, the necessity for an increased area of woodlands, so that a portion at least of this vast sum may be kept at home, will be apparent to all, the more so as a dearth of timber is imminent and outside supplies are being rigidly conserved, while our home demands are ever on the increase.

In order to carry out my proposed scheme of planting a million acres during the next five years, at the rate of 200,000 acres annually, profitable and healthy employment would at once be found for several thousand workmen. The question of transporting, housing and otherwise dealing with these workmen has been brought forward as the most serious drawback to the scheme, but, personally, having had to deal with such cases I can see no insuperable difficulty in the undertaking. Surely, if our railway and water companies, as also private landowners, can deal with hundreds of men in remote mountain districts that are far removed from road and rail, the Government could make the necessary arrangements for the various bodies of workmen that would be employed for afforesting purposes. Nor must tree planting be considered as a new departure for unemployed labour, as in the formation of a large plantation on a dreary exposed hillside in Wales, the whole of the work, including clearing the ground of rough surface growth, draining, pitting and planting, was most successfully carried out by detachments of the unemployed.

The general physique of Army and Navy men and the discipline and hard work to which they have been subjected during the war will render them peculiarly suitable for carrying out the various operations connected with the formation of plantations. Convalescent soldiers and sailors could also find healthy employment in the various lighter tasks which go hand in hand with afforestation, such as clearing the ground of rough growing vegetation and lifting and distributing the young trees.

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