92 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
made fuller with advantage. No doubt, to have a fine account 
of the trip gives those who have been at the Excursion all the 
pleasure that we feel when we see our names in print after 
attending some public function; and it makes those of us who 
have not had the good fortune to be present, sit with watering 
mouths while we read of the pleasures which those who attended 
the trip enjoyed. But still, the publication of our trip is not the 
chief end of the Scottish Arboricultural Society, and I think we 
might have something fuller than that. As to the present 
Transactions, there is, at any rate, one subject which is most 
interesting. I do not know whether it attracts me more parti- 
cularly than others because I have lately started a creosoting plant. 
I refer to the paper of Mr D. F. Mackenzie upon “ Creosoting.” 
That is a subject which is of intense interest to all of us, I hope 
to see the forester and the joiner supplanting to some extent the 
mason and the architect. I do not think that the returns from 
land in these days will support the present generation of architects 
in their works, and I believe that, by the production of suitable 
timber, and by adopting means for its preservation, we may be able 
to house man and beast on as liberal, and far more inexpensive, 
a scale as we have yet attempted in this country. I think 
this paper, therefore, a very valuable contribution towards the 
Transactions of the Society. 
When I was informed I had to make a Presidential Address, I 
took one or two notes of subjects which I wished to speak on at 
so representative a gathering as I am glad to see here. I did so 
with all the more pleasure, because I feel that our Scottish Society 
is the chief centre and the best meeting ground for all who are 
interested in the future of tree-growing in the United Kingdom. It 
is not practised in many parts of the country as a money-making 
undertaking, but I do think we have a better idea of the practical 
nature of Forestry in Scotland—that may not be saying much, but 
it is saying something—than they have in any of the other portions 
of the United Kingdom. And I think that this Society can best 
provide the requisite force which will be necessary for making 
further progress in Forestry. I am not speaking of ornamental 
Forestry. It is not that with*which we need concern ourselves so 
much. I think we understand ornamental Forestry as well in 
Scotland as it is understood in any part of the world. I think I 
may say it is better understood here than in any other part of the 
world. I would not speak lightly for one moment of the science 
