DEPUTATION TO PRESIDENT OF BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 491 



rough timber as compared with timber prepared for the market is 

 very great indeed. That is one way in which the foreigner gets 

 such an enormous pull over us, as his timber, if I may use the 

 word, is "manufactured " where it is grown, and the sea passage 

 is so cheap that it can be landed at innumerable ports, and must 

 at any time — even if our railway rates were a little moi'e equable 

 than I think they are — be able to compete with any home-grown 

 timber to great advantage. These are some of the difficulties 

 that surround this question. Now the last speaker laid great 

 stress on the fact that a wrong kind of timber is very often 

 planted, that thinning is by no means judiciously carried out, 

 and that generally there is not that accurate, that scientific know- 

 ledge brought to bear upon forestry which those interested in the 

 forests of the country would be glad to see much more widely 

 spread. Well, in regard to education in Scotland, I must 

 practically hold my tongue. Agricultural education in Scotland 

 was taken out of the hands of my predecessors, and it is out of 

 mine. But with regard to the English colleges to which the 

 Government gives grants, we are doing our best to see that a 

 certain amount of education in forestry is given, and I hope that 

 even the limited number of men that we shall send out from 

 these colleges with a fair knowledge of forestry will do something 

 to do away with what the last speaker very fairly said was a serious 

 blot on our present system, namely, that Ave do as a matter of 

 fact plant entirely wrong trees, and when we have planted them 

 we do not know how to make the most of them. I saw that on 

 one of the deputations which waited upon my predecessor a 

 member of it was Professor Somerville. Well, I am happy to say 

 that Professor Somerville has now joined the staff of the Board 

 of Agriculture. He takes a great interest in forestry, and you 

 may depend on it in the future, that on this question of forestry 

 I shall have a man whose experience and information will, I 

 think, be of great service to us indeed. There is one other point 

 I must not forget, and that is in regard to money. That is a fifth 

 department I have to reckon with in addition to the other four 

 I previously indicated. It is said to be always difficult to get 

 money from the Treasury, but especially at a time like this, 

 when money is hard to find for other purposes, the Treasury 

 does maintain a firmer grip over the money at its disposal than 

 it would do at other times. But, on the other hand, I am sure 

 that in Sir Michael Hicks Beach we have a Chancellor who has 



