§ MR. J. HERBERT LEWIS (Flint Boroughs)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether the Commissioners of Woods and Forests have made any 728 experimental plantation in Wales; whether they have made inquiry with regard to the desirability of further afforesting Crown land in Wales; and, whether they intend to take the necessary steps to afforest any part of the lands over which they have control?
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT, Oldham)The Commissioner of Woods informs me that he has just completed a plantation of five acres on a Crown Farm in Merioneth-shire principally for the purpose of affording shelter. Last autumn he visited certain wastes of the Crown Lordship of Denbigh with a view to decide whether planting could be carried out with success. The Common Rights existing over these wastes presented difficulties which he discussed with the parties interested. He proposes to visit this and other districts in the coming spring, but it is necessary to bear in mind that the Commissioner of Woods has no control over these waste lands that would enable him to appropriate any portion of them for planting unless the common rights existing over those parts were extinguished.