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Forestry in Great Britain

Nature (London), 1901-11, Vol.63 (1641), p.565-566 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

ISSN: 0028-0836 ;EISSN: 1476-4687 ;DOI: 10.1038/063565a0

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  • Title:
    Forestry in Great Britain
  • Is Part Of: Nature (London), 1901-11, Vol.63 (1641), p.565-566
  • Description: IT is probably known to most people that for the supply of our requirements in the matter of timber, as in that of foodstuffs, we depend largely upon imports from abroad. But it may be doubted if many beyond the comparatively few who have given special attention to the subject have realised the fact that the annual cost to the country of these imports amounts to somewhere about twenty-five millions of pounds. It has been often urged that it would be worth some trouble to prevent this large sum, or a portion of it, going out of the country, and it has been pointed out that a proper system of forest management would bring about this result. Of course, so long as the foreign supply is ample and the price of imported timber is less than that at which it is profitably produced at home, our markets will continue to absorb foreign produce as heretofore; but these conditions which have hitherto prevailed are, in the opinion of experts, not likely to continue. For some years past this and cognate questions have attracted considerable attention, as witness the writings of recent date noted below,1 all of which are deserving of careful perusal. The burden of all of them may be summed up in the phrase cited by a writer in the Times of March 17, 1899. " 'Cotton,' it is said on the other side of the Atlantic, 'was once called king; but King Cotton is a lesser potentate than King Timber must soon become.' " In other words, the world's demand for timber is outrunning the supply under present methods, and an appreciation of timber values is therefore setting in which is likely to be permanent and progressive. Cheap timber is probably a thing of the past in this country. To some such a declaration will only appeal as the old cry of "wolf," and they may argue that any scarcity of timber will be balanced by the substitution for it, in many cases, of other suitable products; and such substitution has, no doubt, in the past taken place, as, for example, in shipbuilding. But it must be remembered that facility of transport has by now led to inroads into the world's timber capital in practically every timber-producing region, and the ruthless destruction of virgin forest without attempt at regeneration has brought us now within measurable distance of the end of the natural supply; and, further, in recent years the applications of timber to other purposes than those of construction, as, for example, in the manufacture of wood-pulp, have made it an efficient substitute for other products, and thus the demands for it have been multiplied, and may be yet increased. In these circumstances, then, not from any sentimental ideas connected with the growing of timber at home, but from the standpoint of business principles, the question of the growing of timber in Great Britain to an extent which shall in some measure make us less dependent upon foreign supply is one which has now assumed practical importance.
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 0028-0836
    EISSN: 1476-4687
    DOI: 10.1038/063565a0
  • Source: Alma/SFX Local Collection
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