586 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. [Jan. 



are broken by the frost, which is a very common occurrence in hard 

 frosty weather. 



Preparing cuttings, trenching, digging, and lifting plants in the 

 nursery are also departments of work to be kept well in hand. 

 Making brooms, summer seats, and all similar work can be done 

 to advantage by handy men, during stormy weather when other 

 work cannot. 



G. Y. MiCHiE. 



CuLLEN House, 

 \2th December 1885. 



i^ETTERS TO THE ^DITOR. 



ROSS-SHIRE FORESTRY. 



SIK, — Would you kindly allow me space for a few remarks 

 regarding a letter by Mr. W. F. Gunn, Strathpeffer, which 

 appeared in your JSTovember issue. 



In the first place, it is quite true, as stated by Mr. Gunn, that I 

 received a long list of queries from a friend who was then forester 

 at Strathpeffer, with a request that I would answer them in detail 

 for Mr. Gunn's information. This list I submitted to my employer, 

 and he told me to please myself whether I answered them or not. 

 Being very busy at the time with estate work, and only having 

 been about a year in Ross-shire, I wrote my friend saying that I 

 had no time to answer his queries in writing, but that I would give 

 any information I could verbally. 



Mr. Gunn explains how he made a mistake regarding the acreage 

 of wood on this estate, and in doing so he takes it for granted that 

 the whole of Novar Woods are entered in the Valuation Eoll for the 

 sum of £92, 5s. If Mr. Gunn had taken the trouble to make a 

 few inquiries, he would have found that a large extent of wood 

 constitutes part of Novar Sheep Farm ; and that considerable 

 portions of wood are entered as grazings in connection with other 

 holdings on the property. 



The remainder of Mr. Gunn's letter is a qualified admission that 

 his report regarding Novar Woods is inaccurate; only, when he 

 speaks of the prices of Pioss-shire timber, he insinuates that my 

 experience in the sale of timber began in Eoss-shire, and that I gave 

 the prices obtained on a certain estate mentioned in my letter to 

 you last July. So far as my experience of timber sales is con- 



