When all our shipping was required for other purposes, it was a most serious matter to take up tonnage with a cargo so bulky as timber, occupying probably more ship space in proportion to its value than any other. More timber was required for huts and sheds, for railway sleepers, and a variety of other purposes. For the construction of aircraft special kinds of timber were needed. The demand for pit props in enormous quantities was urgent and continuous. At the same time the loss of shipping through submarine action became very serious. Fortunately our French Allies had been more provident in conserving and promoting their home supplies. Forestry in France had been carefully fostered by the Government. To take one example alone, the Landes, the district near the coast between Bordeaux and Bayonne, which had once been a region of dreary marsh, shifting sand, or scanty pasture, had been turned into splendid forest by wise forethought a century ago, and yielded great supplies of valuable timber. Science has pointed out many ways in which small and waste wood also can be used for the production of a number of substances necessary in peace and still more urgently required in war. The Landes country was noted for its production of rosin. Thousands of cups into which it exudes from cuts in the trees are to be seen when passing through the forests in that region. Shortage of tonnage during the War made it necessary to use the home supply of wood of the United Kingdom to the fullest extent. A controller of timber supplies was appointed, though, as usual, rather late in the day. Under his energetic management a very large part of the timber needed was obtained in this country. It was essential to get all that was possible, but the result is inevitable "that we shall have to face a period in which production will be much below even the low figure which it had reached before the War. Not only have mature crops been felled in all parts of the United Kingdom, but thousands of acres of young or immature woods have been felled for pit-wood and other purposes, or have been thinned to a degree which renders clearing and replanting absolutely essential."