98 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



or they may keep a Plantation Book to secure the maintenance 

 of coverts and ornamental woodlands so as best to fulfil their 

 purpose. 



The value of work such as that under review, as an encourage- 

 ment to methodical treatment, needs no recommendation. With 

 it before us, we can see that any woods can be planned for 

 definite purpose, either by an expert or by practical and com- 

 petent estate managers. If a foreign model be adopted, then 

 probably the French is the less rigid, and is more suited to our 

 present needs than the German ; but no one model is essential, 

 and a useful scheme may be worked out in an estate office as 

 the result of study and experience, aided by a record or clear 

 appreciation of the objects for which the area to be treated has 

 been grown, and the purpose to which the product is to be 

 applied. 



The first draft of any kind of plan is extremely troublesome, 

 but with the aid of a competent forester and some ordnance 

 sheets — checked in some cases by special survey — a first-rate estate 

 staff may take a plan in hand as part of its ordinary work. Yet 

 since the work is new to us all, it will be often expedient, 

 especially where considerable areas are concerned, to call in 

 expert opinion. This has been done in different ways, upon 

 various estates, and with satisfactory results ; and it may be 

 confidently recommended as by far the most reliable procedure. 

 A fee may be given for expert advice with regard to the pre- 

 liminary steps, or to secure supervision for the final draft of a 

 scheme ; periodical inspection can be secured by keeping a 

 control book for the examination and the notes of some recognised 

 authority; or an expert may be placed in regular charge of some 

 large woodland area. 



One great end which may be attained through scientific 

 control is continuity of policy. Individual control of industry 

 has many advantages over collective control but it lacks con- 

 tinuity, the very essence of successful forest management; and 

 in these islands there is no example of real continuity of forest 

 treatment. One reason for suggesting this safeguard is that it 

 has been found practically impossible to devise any kind of trust 

 or other security for the due fulfilment of a forest plan. This 

 was much to be desired at the initiation of the movement, 

 because it would be too much to expect that until the cash 

 returns are actually banked, systematic forestry would attract 



