vice-president's address. 179 



condition than it is in at present, whether as regards the work 

 which it is accomplishing, or from the state of its finances. 

 Established in 1854 by a few enthusiastic foresters, it has done 

 a great deal of good work in its time. The present member- 

 ship is about eight hundred, composed of landed proprietors, 

 foresters, gardeners, factors, nurserymen, wood merchants, and 

 allied trades. We have an active and able President in the 

 Earl of Mansfield, one of the best landlords in Scotland or 

 anywhere else. Thus you see that the position of the Society 

 is one of influence and importance from a membership point 

 of view. You are aware that the objects of the Society are 

 to advance the science and practice of Arboriculture, and it 

 has hitherto sought to attain these ends by lectures or the 

 reading of papers, giving prizes for essays on professional sub- 

 jects, and visiting and inspecting the principal wooded estates 

 at home and abroad. The Society has also in recent years 

 approached the Government of the day, with the view of getting 

 them to found a Forestry Chair at the University of Edinburgh, 

 and also for the purpose of establishing a Model Forest Area. 

 In these projects, we as a Society have not as yet received 

 much encouragement frorn the State. It is true that Mr Long, 

 President of the Board of Agriculture, received some time ago 

 a deputation of the Society very courteously and sympathetically 

 as regards the objects sought to be attained, but it may be said 

 that there the matter has ended for the present. This leads me 

 to ask the question, Why has the all-important subject stopped 

 there 1 or has the Society been asking anything unreasonable 1 

 I think that I may say, without fear of contradiction, that it 

 is now generally admitted by Forest experts and others, that the 

 State must come sooner or later to the aid of a National Forest 

 System. 



The realisation of a National System of Forestry is not one 

 which only concerns the welfare and interests of a few individuals, 

 or even some classes of the population. It has far wider rami- 

 fications. The question is one of wide and far-reaching effects. 

 It permeates the whole of society for good. 



At the present time, one of the subjects which is most exercising 

 the minds of thinking men is that of the congestion of the 

 population of our large towns and all its attendant evils. 

 Thinking politicians and economists have become alarmed at 

 the rush of the country population to large industrial centres. 



