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Tower, wall, and palace,

May he have

-The rich man denying his God.'

The stanza runs very smoothly to the end

'Si mortz no fos

Elh valgra per un cen.'

The modern Provençal enthusiast who is in raptures at the idea of chivalric love (a term which he usually misunderstands), and who is little concerned with the art of verse, has often failed to notice how finely the sound of Cardinal's poems is matched with their meaning. There is a lash and sting in his timbre and in his movement. Yet the old man is not always bitter; or, if he is bitter, it is with the bitterness of a torn heart and not of a hard one. It is so we find him in the sirvente beginning:

'As a man weepeth for his son or for his father,

Or for his friend when death has taken him,

So do I mourn for the living who do their own ill,
False, disloyal, felon, and full of ill-fare,

Deceitful, breakers-of-pact,

Cowards, complainers,

Highwaymen, thieves-by-stealth, turn-coats,

Betrayers, and full of treachery,

Here where the devil reigns

And teaches them to act thus.'

He is almost the only singer of his time to protest against the follies of war. As here:

'Ready for war, as night is to follow the sun,

Readier for it than is the fool to be cuckold

When he has first plagued his wife!

And war is an ill thing to look upon,

And I know that there is not one man drawn into it
But his child, or his cousin or someone akin to him
Prays God that it be given over.'

He says plainly, in another place, that the barons make war for their own profit, regardless of the peasants. Fai mal senher vas los sieu.' His sobriety is not to be fooled

A hundred men he would be worth

Were there no death.'

with sentiment either martial or otherwise. There is in him little of the fashion of feminolatry, and the gentle reader in search of trunk-hose and the light guitar had better go elsewhere. As for women: 'L'una fai drut.'

'One turns leman for the sake of great possessions;
And another because poverty is killing her,
And one hasn't even a shift of coarse linen;

And another has two and does likewise.

And one gets an old man-and she is a young wench,
And the old woman gives the man an elixir.'

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As for justice, there is little now: If a rich man steal by chicanery, he will have right before Constantine (i.e. by legal circumambience), but the poor thief may go hang. And after this there is a passage of pity and of irony fine-drawn as much of his work is, for he keeps the very formula that De Born had used in his praise of battle, 'Belh mes quan vey'; and, perhaps, in Sir Bertrans' time even the Provençal wars may have seemed more like a game, and may have appeared to have some element of sport and chance in them. But the 12th century had gone, and the spirit of the people was weary, and the old canon's passage may well serve as a final epitaph on all that remained of silk thread and cisclatons, of viol and gai saber.

'Never again shall we see the Easter come in so fairly,
That was wont to come in with pleasure and with song.
No! but we see it arrayed with alarms and excursions,
Arrayed with war and dismay and fear,
Arrayed with troops and with cavalcades,

Oh yes, it's a fine sight to see holder and shepherd
Going so wretched that they know not where they are.'

EZRA POUND.

PENGE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

PENGE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Art. 7.-FORESTRY IN ENGLAND ABROAD.
LIBRARYBROAD.

1. The Forest Resources of the World.

U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Bulletin 83.

2. Forestry (Journal of the Royal English Arboricultural Society.) London: Laughton.

3. Transactions of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society. Edinburgh: Douglas.

4. Board of Trade Returns. (Annual.) London: Wyman. 5. Forest Service. Circulars 97, 162, 171. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

6. Department of Trade, Canada. Weekly Report, No. 315.

7. Proceedings of Select Committees and Royal Commissions on Coast Erosion and Afforestation. London: Wyman. It is proposed to review the facts regarding the timber supply of the world, so far as they can be ascertained, since the question of an adequate supply of raw material is of primary importance to every industrial nation. It is essential that those who are interested in the welfare of their country should be warned that, unless vigorous and immediate steps are taken to afforest our waste lands, we shall be faced with a shortage of raw material long before the close of the present century. Experts in every country are agreed that the world's supply of structural and coniferous timber is rapidly diminishing, and that a shortage must be experienced at a period not far remote. We have therefore to review the principal forest-resources of the world and the steps that have been taken here and elsewhere to provide for the future.

In recent years there have been several Departmental Committees and one Royal Commission on Forestry, and a vast amount of valuable evidence has been published in connexion with their proceedings. It is largely due, however, to the Royal Scottish and the Royal English Arboricultural Societies and to the writings of such men as Sir William Schlich, F.R.S., that Forestry is being studied as a science in this country and is beginning to be better understood. The Board of Agriculture has now a section for dealing with the subject; and its publications, as well as those of the Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew, contain much useful information.

There are three sets of figures from which a fair comparison may be drawn between the forest conditions in this country and those in other countries of Europe. The first shows in each country the percentage of forest land to the total area; the second the estimated annual growth of wood per acre of forest; and the third the estimated annual return per acre from the forests. In the United Kingdom the acreage under woodland and plantations in 1908 was as follows: England, 1,792,338 acres; Scotland, 919,056 acres; Ireland, 305,000 acres; Wales, 198,078 acres ; Total, 3,214,472 acres. The total land surface of the United Kingdom amounts to 75,706,668 acres; the percentage of woodland and forest is therefore rather more than 4 per cent. of the whole. The percentage of forests to total land area in other countries is for Russia, 40; AustriaHungary, 30; Germany, 26; Italy, 18; Sweden, 48; Norway, 21; Switzerland, 21; Spain, 17; Belgium, 17; Holland, 7; Denmark, 6.

The second comparison is a more technical one, but with a little reflection the figures should be as easy to understand as those given above. From the point of view of scientific forestry, it is an acknowledged fact that our woodlands are in an unproductive state and make a poor comparison with those of other European countries. It is estimated that the average annual growth in cubic feet of timber for the three million odd acres in these islands is only 10 cubic feet per acre. Hedgerow and park trees are not included in these figures. Now it is generally held that our forest lands are capable, under scientific management, of producing an annual growth of at least 60 cubic feet per acre; and this estimate is not too high, as the conditions of soil and climate in Great Britain are very favourable to tree growth. In Germany, where scientific forestry has been practised for a century, it is estimated that the average annual growth or increment for the whole of the German forests is 50 cubic feet per acre. The German forests, under scientific management, are therefore yielding, acre for acre, five times as much wood as the forests in this country. The estimated annual yield in cubic feet per acre for other countries is, Austria-Hungary, 43; France, 39; Italy, 37; Belgium, 58; Switzerland, 50. In Russia, Sweden, and Norway a considerable portion of the forest area is at a

very high latitude; and the yield, in consequence, is lower than for more southerly parts of Europe. In Sweden the annual growth is estimated at 25 cubic feet; in the northern parts of Norway, it is as low as 11.3 per acre. Thus Great Britain lags far behind.

Owing to lack of information the third set of figures is unfortunately not so complete, but is sufficiently accurate for the purpose of an approximate comparison. It has been estimated that in 1908 the value of all timber and wood cut from woodlands in Great Britain averaged 58. 9d. per acre. On the Continent gross annual returns up to 21. per acre are not uncommon. The annual value per acre of the timber grown in a few of the principal countries of Europe, for the whole of their forests, is as follows: Germany, 158.; France, 108.; Switzerland, 138.; Belgium, 158. Here again Great Britain is easily last. Austria-Hungary exports more timber than any country in the world, but unluckily the figures for the annual value per acre are not available.

It should be noted, when comparing these figures with those in the previous table, that, although the yield per acre in cubic feet is much less in the United Kingdom, the value of the timber grown compares very favourably with that grown in Europe. This is due to the fact that we grow a higher percentage of hardwoods than is grown abroad. Our oak, ash and beech are the best in the world; and the proportion of larch grown to other trees is a high one, and always commands a good price in the home market. This fact helps to strengthen the case for scientific management, as excellent crops of timber can be grown in this country. It will be necessary, however, to follow the Continental practice and to grow a larger proportion of conifers on our poorer lands.

Having considered the area and the condition of our woodlands, we shall now consider the amount of timber we import to maintain our industries. The United Kingdom buys nearly half the timber exported from all countries; and the prices ruling in the English market affect the markets of the world. The Board of Trade returns for 1911 show that the value of the timber imported into this country amounted to 35,000,000l.; of this amount about 6,500,000l. was paid for wood pulp. Vol. 219.-No, 437.

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