136 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ledge of plants and flowers and ti'ees came into active play ; he 

 was constantly appealed to for the name of some rare flower or 

 conifer, and seldom in vain, for his reading on his favourite 

 subjects was wide and accurate, and his memory marvellously re- 

 tentive, so that what he once knew seemed never to be forgotten. 

 If anything ever troubled him in connection with these excursions, 

 it was the inability, sometimes, of a section of the members to 

 appreciate to the full the exacting daily programmes he set before 

 them, lasting always from "morn to dewy eve.' Himself an 

 untiring walkei^, he had little sympathy with those who sought to 

 shirk any item in the day's programme, and at such times he was 

 wont to comment on the degeneracy of modern legs. Little 

 failings that way were all, however, leanings to virtue's side, and 

 everything he undertook was with a single eye to the good of the 

 Society. 



It may here be appropriately recalled, that at the annual meet- 

 ing of the Society, held in January 1898, Mr Dunn was by 

 acclamation elected an honorary member. In making the pro- 

 position, Professor Somerville said: "that in conferring this honour 

 on Mr Dunn, the Society would mark its sense of the extra- 

 ordinary value of his services to the cause of Arboriculture, 

 Horticulture, and Forestry, not only in Scotland, but in Great 

 Britain and Ireland, and would at the same time give expression 

 to the feelings of every Member that no one had done more to 

 advance the best interests of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society than Mr Dunn." 



One phase of Mr Dunn's character specially noteworthy, was 

 his unselfishness and his willingness to consider and to help others, 

 especially any young gardener he thought deserving of encourage- 

 ment. Many men in different parts of the country, now in good 

 positions, speak with gratitude of the kindly interest taken by 

 Mr Dunn in their welfare when such was of great advantage to 

 them. He spared himself no trouble to serve his friends, and 

 even those who were not in that category received his best 

 attention. Letters frequently came to him from all parts of 

 the country — many of them from utter strangers — asking 

 advice and information on horticultural and arboricultural 

 matters, and he often sat far into the night looking up 

 authorities, in order that there might be no mistake about the 

 replies he gave to his numerous correspondents. Being un- 

 married, his work, his books, and his interest in the Arbori- 



