6 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Dram, St Petersburg, or other Norway or Baltic ports, is to be 
preferred, but if not procurable, the best quality of American red 
pine only may be substituted. In either case, the use of any 
particular description is subject to the approval of the Board.” 
The Board think that the new wording proposed will probably 
meet the views of the Society. 
With regard to the specifications for contracts issued by the 
various public Departments of the State, the Board would suggest 
that any suggestions which the Society may decide to offer on the 
subject of the use of home-grown timber, should be brought directly 
under the notice of those Departments, by whom they will doubt- 
less be fully considered.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
JacosB WILson, Director. 
R. C. Munro Fercuson, Esq., M.P. 
You will observe that the protest of the Society has had effect, 
and the objectionable limitation respecting home-grown timber has 
been modified for Scotland, so far as concerns work under control 
of the Board of Agriculture—a tribute to the usefulness of this 
Society as representing the voice of forestry interests in Scotland. 
What may be the nature of the specifications issued by the Board 
for England and other parts of the United Kingdom I do not 
know, but it is worth while calling the attention of our offspring, 
the English Arboricultural Society, to this matter. If the prohibi- 
tion exists in England, that Society should not be behind the 
parent Society in pressing for its removal. And our vindication of 
home forestry with the Board of Agriculture should be for ourselves 
only a first step in this matter. The Board of Agriculture rightly 
refuses to interfere with the work of other Departments of 
Government, and our clear duty now is to follow up what we have 
already done by a rigorous inquiry into the forms of specification 
issued by all other Public Departments involving use of timber, so 
that we may altogether remove the stigma which has become 
attached to our home products. In the immediate case with which 
we have dealt, we cannot but commend the zeal with which Mr 
Munro Ferguson has acted in the matter, and thank him for his 
active co-operation. 
One other and less satisfactory point regarding our procedure 
during the past year I must allude to. To a successful and 
influential Society, as to a similarly placed individual, there always 
attaches the risk of being exploité, and I fear that we must 
consider that—no doubt in very good company—we have given 
our patronage to an undertaking from which I personally do not 
