TRANSACTIONS 
OF THE 
ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
I. Address delivered at the Fortieth Annual Meeting, Tth August 
1893. By Isaac Bayitry Batrour, Se.D., M.D., F.RS., 
Queen’s Botanist in Scotland, Professor of Botany in the 
University of Edinburgh, and Keeper of the Royal Botanic 
Garden. 
GENTLEMEN,—I confess to a feeling of diffidence in rising to 
address you from this Chair to-day, inasmuch as I am disposed to 
call in question, in the interests of this and indeed of any society, 
the policy of retaining, for a lengthened period, one individual in 
the President’s Chair; and I cannot but think that, in now for the 
fourth time choosing me to preside over your meetings, the limit to 
which such continuity of office is wise has been more than reached. 
T am fully sensible of your kindness, and I beg you will accept the 
warm expression of my appreciation of the honour you do me in 
again electing me to the Chair, and receive my acknowledgments 
of your continued confidence. I can only give you again my 
assurance that I shall endeavour, as far as is within my power, to 
promote the aims of the Society, and the progress of the science 
to which it is devoted. 
I have been reminded, by those who are responsible for the 
arrangements connected with the Excursion, that the hour of 
starting necessitates our proceedings here being of short duration, 
—a gentle hint, I take it, that I should be brief in any remarks 
I make to you now, and I will therefore endeavour, in as small a 
compass as possible, to touch upon several topics concerning our 
work during the past year which I desire to bring before you. 
It is my pleasing duty, first of all, to inform you that the 
Society is in a most prosperous condition. Last year I was able 
VOL. XIV. PART I. A 
