The Vote that the Minister for Lands moved last night in regard to forestry is, in my opinion, one of the most important to come before the House in the course of each year. Naturally enough, forestry is not of as much interest to city Deputies as it is to rural Deputies but I believe that city people are much larger consumers of timber, good, and wood products than rural people and I think they might ask themselves, when they do make a purchase of timber, where it comes from and is it home produced or is it foreign? If the answer is that it is foreign they must then ask themselves "Why have we not all our own supplies"?
During the course of the last ten or eleven years this Vote has grown to many times its original size. I think I would be correct in saying that this year the Vote brings our total expenditure on forestry up to at least, approximately, £18,000,000. Only £4 million was spent on forestry before 1948. That is a sign of progress in this Department and both the Minister and the officials have a good deal on which to congratulate themselves. It was a huge job to expand the programme from 4,000 acres to 25,000 acres which is the target for the season beginning in October next.
When we come to discuss forestry and the reaching of the proposed target of having a million acres of forestry on the land of this country where there has been little or no forestry we have to take into account the user of the land. We have about 17 million acres of land all told. Of that roughly 11½ or 12 million acres are arable land and 5 to 5½ million acres are waste land. There are about 3 or 3 ½ million acres of rough land which can be brought into full production. Side by side with that there is a marginal or semiarable area the productivity of which could be increased by drainage and by means of the rehabilitation scheme.
The Minister for Lands, when dealing with forestry, must confine himself to the poor portion of our lands. That is the case in every country. If we take the target of a million acres, whether it takes 50 years, 30 years or 20 years to achieve it, it is a step in the right direction. I notice that in 1957, last year, and again this year the Minister has been very keen on economy. He is very keen that the grumblers of the future will not be able to say, when these forests come to maturity, that the money would have been better spent if it had been invested at 3, 4 or 5 per cent. interest. I want to warn the Minister against letting that idea encroach too far on his mind.
Unlike other countries we are starting completely from the beginning in this country. We have no tradition of forestry nor have we any experience except that gained since 1908, when Charles Stewart Parnell gave his own home to the nation for the growing of forests. The only knowledge we have is the knowledge we have gained by trial and error. With the exception of this country and England, that is not the case anywhere else. The problem of other countries such as France, Italy and Germany is to utilise the existing natural forests that have been there for thousands of years. We are in a completely different category. We are the only country that has to establish forests right from the very start. In those circumstances I often think of the good job that has been done by our forestry people and the very small percentage of failures that they have had. We have no one to turn to for experience and our forestry officials have to realise that they have got to learn the hard way, by trial and error. Their errors have been very small over the years.
I want to run through various aspects of the Minister's brief and I want to point out that he has omitted what are, to my mind, two very important points. He has ommitted to mention the total number of men at present employed and the plantable reserve. I wonder would the Minister have these two figures at hand because they are fairly important?
The Minister also mentioned that receipts from timber thinnings had fallen £5,400 below the estimate. Why did they fall? Even if they had remained at the same figure as for the previous year I would still want to know why. I should also like to know what amount of thinnings it is expected the new Scariff chipboard factory will take. I should like to know too what sales in thinnings are taking place at home and if they are as much as was expected. I am keen on these questions because we are spending a very large amount of money on the planting of trees. These will be coming up to first and second thinning and then to maturity, and I would like to know what the produce of our forests will be. There is no use planting trees if we do not know what we are to get for them.
The Minister mentioned that the Electricity Supply Board and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs have been taking some poles from the Forestry Department. Again I would like to know how much they have taken and how they compare in finish and quality with the foreign poles they have been used to getting.
I should like to know also if any progress has been made towards establishing a research section in the Department and what progress has been made towards finding the annual increment of growth in the existing forests, and towards the elimination of disease and pests in forests. I am interested in these questions because a research department would be able to give us a fair idea of mineral deficiencies or other physical obstacles that might retard growth. It had been intended to establish such a research station at Shelton Abbey.
Last year I expected to see a report on small pulp mills from the D.P.A. This is an important matter and I think the Minister should now take the first step towards the establishing of our own pulp mill. I am not running down the private industries but I want to warn the Minister that, human nature being what it is and the forests being State-owned, it is quite natural that the danger may arise that the private pulp mill owners will create a situation in the years to come when they will try to get the produce of our forests at their own price. There would be only one way to meet such a situation. That would be by having our own pulp mill. That is a danger that has to be guarded against. It is a very real danger. I would be very sorry to think, after the tremendous effort made for the last ten years to establish forestry, that the day would come when, through lack of foresight now, the produce of these forests would become merely food for a racket in this country.
Am I correct in deducing that the plantable reserve is in the region of 56,000 acres? Naturally the Minister is very conservative in this regard. I do not want to lull him into a sense of false security by telling him he need not be alarmed at that figure. I know he would like to see a figure of 80,000 acres. So would I. It would make for much better working. Before the seeds are put into the new nursery beds in the Spring, it would be very nice to know exactly to the lb., the weight of seed and how many transplants were necessary for a three year planting programme. Do not forget the big forestry drive is only nine or ten years old.
The Minister's record over the past few years has been very creditable, but I think the time has come when he will have to increase the ceiling price for land. A good many offers of land failed because the people selling felt they were not getting a fair price for it, rough mountain land as it was. I agree with them. I encourage as many people as possible to sell their land but, once they feel they are not getting a fair price, I cannot press the matter any further. The present limit is about £12 for the best forestry land. It is not sufficient. In some cases £2 or £1 per acre has been offered. That might be all right in cases of a vast expanse of poor quality land, but it would be the worst of bad management if the plantable reserve, because of the low ceiling price, was not kept up to maximum.
During the course of his speech the Minister dwelt on the danger of the plantable reserve not being sufficient. He said that the Department should be in a position to plan work programmes for individual forests in such a way as to provide a steady flow of work in the years ahead. He added: "We are now forced to arrange unduly large planting programmes at newly established forests in Western countries." Along the western seaboard from Kerry to Donegal lies the largest pool of land for forestry. Almost all the available forest land in Wicklow has been bought up and planted and the same is true in many other countries. The Minister will have to turn to the West. During my term of office I deliberately encouraged a high percentage of planting each year in the West, and the figure crept up from 13 per cent. or 14 per cent. to 42 per cent. in 1957. The Minister did not give us the actual percentage this year and I should like to have it.
Not alone is the greatest area of forest land available in the western counties but it is there also that emigration and flight from the land are at its greatest, because of the poor quality of the land. It is only through the operations of the forestry division that emigration can be stemmed and a certain population stabilised on the land. The Minister himself said that Bord na Móna and forestry are the only two sources of permanent employment available in the rural areas at present. Arterial drainage and other works are too spasmodic and would have no lasting effect. That is true. The Minister should concentrate on the West. He cannot get much land in Meath, Kildare or the midland counties because the quality is very good.