100 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
VILL. On a Limited Liability Company to acquire a Timber 
Estate. Paper read before the General Meeting, January 23, 
1895, by Professor SOMERVILLE. 
During the past ten years the cause of Forestry has made great 
progress in this country. I will not say that it has made a@d/ the 
progress that the members of this Society could have desired, but 
at the same time I do think we have considerable reason to be 
satisfied with the measure of success that has attended our efforts. 
The past decade has witnessed two Forestry Exhibitions, the 
labours of a Special Committee of the House of Commons, the 
institution of several centres where education in Forestry can be 
obtained, the formation of a Board of Agriculture, which gives 
such support to the subject as lies within its limited powers, the 
appearance of a large addition to the literature of the subject, and 
last, but not least, the selection of Forestry as a theme for the 
presidential address in an important section of the British Associa- 
tion. All this activity is extremely satisfactory, but, after all, has 
it perceptibly advanced the object that was largely instrumental in 
stimulating that activity? For it must not be forgotten that one 
of the chief objects of our Edinburgh Forestry Exhibition, of the 
Committee of the House of Commons, and of the pamphlets, 
articles, and addresses that have from time to time appeared, has 
been to induce private owners and the State to turn their attention 
to the millions of acres of poor pasture lands that abound almost 
everywhere, and to devote a considerable portion to the cultivation 
of woods. 
Well, then, have we as individuals, or as a Society, succeeded in con- 
vincing the owners of suitable land that it is for their best interests 
to plant such land with trees, and do we find that our unproductive 
hill-sides ave rapidly being covered by a vigorous growth of young 
forests? I think it will be admitted that, as a rule, the extension 
of our woodlands is not progressing at a rate proportionate with 
the enthusiasm of the advocates of extended sylviculture. For 
this state of things there are one or two obvious reasons. The 
first is that very few landlords are able or desirous of dispensing 
with a part of their present income, even with the prospect of 
their capital being returned, plus a satisfactory rate of interest, fifty 
