Afforestation in the British Isles

Abstract

THE question of extending the woods of the United Kingdom has recently been brought forward in the press, and questions have been asked in Parliament as to the willingness of Government to assist in furthering a scheme for stocking certain of our waste lands with trees. Now, afforestation may be required owing to those indirect advantages it affords to the climate and soil of a country, which have been described in detail by Dr. Schlich,¹ and again quite recently in NATURE, by Dr. Nisbet,² or merely to increase the national wealth in forest produce. In our case, forests are certainly not required merely to reduce the air and soil temperatures, or to increase the atmospheric humidity; they may afford useful shelter against the strong westerly gales, or cutting east winds, and in our more mountainous districts they may assist in preventing denudation of the soil, which on a large scale has proved so destructive to agriculture in the Rhone Valley and other regions, but is not very much to be feared in our islands.