According to the Secretary of the Agricultural Department of Washington, the area of forests in the United States is 700 million acres, but even now the States are more or less dependent on Canada, and actually receive the entire surplus from that country. But regarding the United States, ex-President Roosevelt said: “If the present rate of forest destruction is allowed to continue with nothing to offset it, a timber famine in the future is inevitable. Remember that you can prevent such a famine occurring by wise action taken in time; but once the famine occurs there is no possible way of hurrying the growth of trees necessary to relieve it.” Again, the late Mr. Lewis Miller, who had vast forests both in Sweden and Nova Scotia, told me that in twenty-five years neither the United States nor Canada will have much timber left, while Sweden and Finland are already played out. “I am also of opinion,” he said, “that during the next twenty-five years timber will be double its present price, and that it will not only pay to plant land valued at 3_s._ per acre, but that worth 20_s._ per acre.” These are no idle words, but the records of those who know well what they are talking about; neither are the writers in any sense pessimists. With all these warnings from men whose business it is to study the question and who are fully qualified to advance an opinion, surely it is time that we took up seriously the question of afforestation. It may be said by some that the timber of our foreign possessions will partly fill up the gap, but this is not the case. Indian timber, principally teak, is not in request to any appreciable extent, while the great African forests are hardwoods, and as a rule unsuited to our wants. The forests of South America are on a par with those of India and Africa, while China and Japan, as also Australia, require more timber than they possess. =Cost of suitable Land for Afforesting.=—When in the past the question of afforesting has been brought forward, the usual outcry has been that suitable land is too expensive to buy. But this argument will no longer suffice, for, as I have before pointed out, excellent land for the cultivation of high-class timber can be procured in considerable quantity at about £2 per acre. Through the kindness of Lord Ancaster’s estate agent, I have been allowed to look over the sale contracts of several parts of the Gwydyr Estate, in Carnarvonshire, and from these I find that 7,412 acres were disposed of, at an average price of £2 2_s._ 3_d._ per acre. The ground was excellent for the production of timber, as the larch on other adjoining lands clearly evidenced. Again the Crown recently purchased 12,500 acres in Scotland at the modest rental of about £2 per acre. Other instances could be quoted, but the above suffice to show that land in every way suited for profitable tree planting can be bought at probably less than £2 per acre.