You can't eat trees, of course, but the vagaries of the cattle trade, and other trends on the markets, may be turning the minds of farmers with a fair acreage, to put more than a token share into commercial timber. There is advice available, and grants and, perhaps, romantically, the idea that to plant trees is, somehow, especially patriotic. Well.
Anyway, there is no shortage of official advice and exhortation available. A day or two ago the Minister of State for Forestry, Jimmy Deenihan was speaking, in Limerick to a group of interested people, not without some official speak. "The objective of forestry development," he is quoted as saying, "was to maximise economic and social benefit." That meant, he said, that he was thinking of more than timber production. He wanted, support for the recently launched urban woodland scheme, including also villages and small towns. He wanted greater diversity and benefit in the areas of recreation, leisure and sporting activity. He wants more trees, for everyone, it seems. good on him.
All this was at the Second National Conference on Urban Forestry, organised by the Tree Council and others. There was listed a formidable series of lectures, the keynote being by Deborah Gangloff, vice president of the magnificently named Global Releaf, of Washington DC. There was a field trip on the subject of The Forest of Limerick (great), with the note on the programme "wet gear essential". And there was Finglas wood, and The Forests of Belfast, and London Trees.
It's all a sort of Revival atmosphere. Like the heady days of the Gaelic League of a century ago. Reafforestation was one of the early planks of this State. It was pursued by fits and starts. But it's not all commercial timber, though that is something we cannot do without. We need a consciousness of the multifarious benefits of releafing Ireland throughout the citizenry.
That great man Paddy Madden, teaching in Dublin, who has established in the school grounds (small space a real wildlife garden, inducing in the minds of the children a sense of wonder and mystery about the natural world around them.
It can start with the simplest of hydroponics - an acorn, point down, in a Ballygowan bottle filled with water. Begin early with children for tree worship of the right sort.