ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, JANUARY 23, 1895. » Wa 
of Conifere, or of any portion of the forester’s art. But what I 
wish to say a word or two upon this afternoon is the money- 
making part of Forestry, because, unless you can make money 
out of timber-growing, you will not have any great extension 
of the forest area, I wish to speak upon Forestry as a paying 
undertaking, because I think extension will follow profits. There 
are one or two general principles which I think we may safely 
follow. One is, that trees should be grown wherever they are the 
best paying crop. One of the results of Free Trade has been to 
make the timber crop a more important one than it was, and one 
which offers more prospect of being paying in its results as com- 
pared with other crops which have hitherto been raised on land. I 
know it is held by many people—I heard it held by a very practical 
and highly-respected country gentleman, Mr Dundas of Arniston— 
that timber-growing was not a paying concern. That was in his 
examination before the Forestry Commission in the House of 
Commons. I think, however, that that view will not stand cross- 
examination. If you plant trees as shelter strips; if you plant 
strips of trees along the side of a hill, they are not likely to pay; 
but then they are not planted to pay as timber: they are planted 
to pay as shelter. But if you plant timber in sufficiently large 
breadths, and plant it irrespective of shelter, it is a paying crop. I 
think that has been shown sufticiently, and over and over again. 
At any rate, to me it has been shown so sufliciently—that I shall 
not venture to trouble you with any figures—that the growth of 
timber is in many cases by far the most profitable use that can 
be made of land. Mr Robertson, who looks after my woods at 
Novar, submitted to the Society some figures, which showed a 
profit of some 10s. an acre on growing larch. Well, I have no 
reason to doubt the truth of these figures; but I know this for 
certain, that the fee-simple value of the land upon which that 
larch is growing would not be worth, if it were put into the 
market, more than 20s. an acre. What is true of larch is, I think, 
also true of some kinds of hardwoods. Certainly where plane tree 
has been grown there has been a full return for the land so 
occupied in recent years. We might compare the return from the 
growth of timber with that from arable land. If you take the net 
rent from arable land, you will find that it does not repay much 
more than interest upon the capital which has been expended upon 
buildings, drainage, and roads. Now the profit from timber, if it 
is not very great, is at any rate net profit; and therefore I think 
