Under Subhead H— Appropriations-in-Aid, allowance has been made for receipts totalling £363,000 as compared with an allowance of £330,500 in the original estimate for 1959/60. Actual receipts realised in 1959/60 including receipts appropriated under the Supplementary Estimate for that year totalled slightly over £380,000, which was substantially above the highest level of receipts in any previous year.
The important receipt head is that for sales of timber. Receipts from timber sales in 1959/60 totalled almost £313,000 which was over £30,000 above the level in any previous year. The Estimate allowance under this head in 1960/61 is £320,000 and in relation to the level of receipts last year there should be little difficulty in realising this sum.
Apart from sales of firewood, nearly 4½ million cubic feet of timber were sold in 1959-60 compared with 3½ million cubic feet in the previous year. More than one-third of the timber sold in 1959-60 was over 8" quarter girth, that is in the size class suitable generally for box-making and sawlog purposes. The sawlog market which was sluggish and uncertain in 1958-59 was much stronger in 1959-60 and prospects for the current year are satisfactory.
Discussions with the Electricity Supply Board, mentioned in the House last year, with a view to increasing the proportion of home-grown timber used to meet the Board's transmission pole needs were successful. Through selective forest felling co-ordinated with the Board's intake requirements, sales to the Board were stepped up from 3,500 poles in 1958-59 to 13,000 poles in 1959-60. Improved co-ordination also enabled sales to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs for telegraph poles to be increased from 9,000 to 14,000 poles.
The pulpwood market was improved by the commencement in the autumn of 1959 of purchases by the new factory of Chipboard Ltd. in Scariff, Co. Clare, which went into production in December. The opening of this new factory enabled the Department to pursue a more vigorous sales policy in relation to small size timber and was of course particularly useful in providing a convenient outlet for the produce of thinnings at forests in Clare and South Galway.
For the coming year the prospects in relation to the timber market generally appear reasonably satisfactory at the moment and I would expect to see some volumetric increase in sales over last year's level providing receipts somewhat in excess of the allowance made in the Estimate. Further progress was made during the past year in the campaign to promote more extensive use of home-grown timber in the building trade by encouraging contract specifications based on appropriate moisture contents for different purposes and permitting equally of the use of home-grown or imported timber. The report on the European Productivity Agency Small Pulp Mills Survey in which this country participated was published recently. The report is still under study by various interests concerned.
The only remaining Subhead of the Estimate is Subhead D—Grants for Afforestation Purposes. It will be noted that the provision included in the Estimate—£25,000—is £10,000 greater than in 1959/60. Actual expenditure in, 1959/60 was over £14,000 by comparison with £4,300 in 1958/59. It is estimated that a sum of £2,500 will be required in 1960/61 to cover second instalments on grants made in earlier years. The Estimate provision is, therefore, adequate to cover first instalments on new grants totalling £22,500 which would represent the planting of 2,250 acres.
The rise in expenditure last year and the anticipated further rise in the current year is indicative of the increase in private planting which has been brought about by the enlargement of the rate of grant to £20 an acre and by the publicity campaign conducted over the past few years by the Department. During last year the general campaign through newspaper publicity, etc., throughout the country was accompanied by intensive propaganda in Counties Cavan, Clare, Cork and Monaghan. The campaign in these counties centred on a series of lectures spread over the county regions which were organised in cooperation with the local County Committees of Agriculture and the various rural organisations. Altogether 73 lectures were given in the counties concerned. The lectures were well attended and a good deal of interest was displayed, much of which was subsequently converted into positive action. It is still too soon to establish any figure as to the actual level of planting last winter but it seems certain that there was a further substantial increase on the 1958/59 level; in 1958/59 about 1,200 acres were planted by comparison with an average annual figure of 400 acres in previous years. The free Advisory Service which the Department is now making available to all prospective planters is proving well worth while and there was a big increase in the number of advisory inspections sought in 1959/60 as against the previous year. Altogether in 1959/60, 1,073 separate areas totalling 3,138 acres were inspected under the Advisory Scheme.
It is intended to continue the intensive propaganda campaign this year and as in previous years a series of lectures will be arranged in a number of counties. It seems certain at this stage that we are on the high road towards securing the active cooperation of the farming community in bringing into useful production as farm wood-lots, the small waste areas on farms scattered throughout the country which are not being used for agricultural purposes, are suitable for tree cultivation and cannot conveniently be included in the State afforestation scheme. That is the primary objective of the Private Planting Grant Scheme and it is encouraging to find such a growing response to the scheme by farmers, big and small.
I am happy to be able to report a year of sustained progress in both State afforestation and private planting and I recommend the Estimate to the House.