Abstract
THE Forestry Commission has issued a small pamphlet on home-grown timber (Report on Census of Production of Home-Grown Timber, 1930. H.M. Stationery Office. Dec. 30, 1932). The object of the pamphlet is to contrast the production or utilisation of timber in Great Britain in 1930 with the amount used in 1924. With this object, schedules were issued to woodland owners who had furnished returns in 1924. The census shows that there has been a falling-on between 1924 and 1930, both in respect of the volume and value of the material produced. As regards volume, there is a difference of 14 per cent, the decline being from 55,985,000 cub. ft. in 1924 to 48,057,000 cub. ft. in 1930. The value of the material utilised has fallen in the same period from £2,036,000 to £1,545,000, representing a reduction of nearly 12 per cent. Prices ruled higher in England than in Scotland or Wales, but were certainly low as a whole, especially for the fine hardwoods such as oak (16d. per cub. foot in England with an average for Great Britain of 15d.; and 22d. for ash in England with an average of 2ld. for Great Britain both for timber of saw-mill size). A little more than one-fourth of the total volume of material produced during 1930 consisted of the three fine hardwoods, oak, beech and ash (a total of 12,934,700 cub. ft.) and the figures demonstrate that the bulk of the fellings of these three valuable species were made in England, where 8,120,900 cub. ft. (out of the 12,934,700 cub. ft.) were cut, of which 6,194,200 cub. ft. were oak. Some of the fellings being made in these English woodlands are of the worst lumbering type unchecked clear-felling and disposal of all that is saleable, the area being left clogged with rubbish and in a most unsightly state. It may be suggested that the time has arrived when a law prohibiting this type of unchecked lumbering, which has done such extensive harm to forest tracts throughout the globe, is urgently needed.
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Home-Grown Timber in Great Britain, 1930. Nature 131, 905 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131905b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131905b0