68 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
of course, be created by a stroke of the pen, but the initiative for 
their formation would naturally come from the Board of Agri- 
culture. It is possible that, with betterment in forestry practice, 
landowners might be found who would be willing to devote portions 
of their land for the purposes of instruction, following for forestry 
the noble example of Sir John Lawes in his work for agriculture ; 
and everyone interested in forestry must hope this may be so. But 
when the State has already in its hands the means through which 
a large national industry can be fostered, it is surely incumbent 
on it to utilise them for the purpose. And mark you, in asking 
for this, one does not make a large demand upon the Treasury. 
The whole could be done at no ultimate cost, for the profits from 
the areas would unquestionably more than repay any outlay 
incurred upon them. 
The true solution of the forestry question in Britain is to be 
found in the diffusion of accurate knowledge of forest science. 
The landowner has to be convinced that through scientific forestry 
a sound and profitable investment for his capital is to be found in 
woodlands ; the factor or land agent must be instructed in the 
scientific principles of tree-growing for profit, to enable him to 
secure a steady income to the landowner from his invested capital; 
and the working forester has to be taught methods of cultivation 
based upon science, by which his faith in traditional practice, when 
it is, as is so often the case, unscientific, may be dispelled. It is 
through education alone that we can arrive at improved forestry. 
This was recognised by the Select Committee upon Forestry of 
the House of Commons in its report in 1887, which performed a _ 
very valuable service by its exposure of the prevalent ignorance of 
scientific forestry and of well-known facts of tree-cultivation 
amongst those professedly engaged in its practice and study—an 
ignorance the continued existence of which manifests itself in some 
of the writings in current periodicals. The remedy it suggested of 
a State Forest Board, including representatives of science and of 
bodies interested in forestry, charged with the superintendence of 
the formation of forest schools and the preparation of forest litera- 
ture, was superseded by the later institution of the Board of 
Agriculture, in which were absorbed such functions in regard to 
forestry as the Government of the day accepted. We are so 
accustomed to anomalies in our administrative system, that the 
discovery of an additional one hardly surprises us. Yet it is 
difficult to understand why it is that a Board which deals with 
