512 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



occasionally a little friction between scientific and practical men, 

 and farmers, as well as foresters, were sometimes a little dubious 

 about accepting the dicta of scientific men. There were several 

 important questions affecting forestry which it would be for the 

 good of them all to get thoroughly well threshed out. He was 

 a bit of a forester himself, and had planted a good deal of land, 

 but he felt inclined to regret that he had not planted more 

 extensively than he had done. They used to think that the 

 growing of timber crops did not pay. They wanted a quicker 

 return of profit, and, besides, they thought that it spoiled their 

 grouse moors. In that connection they might look to the 

 experience of his friend, Sir John Gladstone of Fasque. Sir 

 John, or his forbears, had planted extensively, and he thought 

 he had spoiled his grouse moors, but he had now found it was 

 the other way about. Sir John had also gone in for a deer 

 forest, and he now found the great benefit there was in having 

 plantations that the deer could go into for shelter. Besides, the 

 price of timber had gone up, and he was now getting a very good 

 return for his thinnings, so that the planting had proved very 

 profitable. But in this matter landlords should not think solely 

 of their own pockets, for the general community had a great 

 interest in forestry — as trees improved the climate, they pro- 

 vided work for a great number of workmen, and they also 

 protected the country against what might come to be a timber 

 famine. They were told that the forests of the Continent and 

 of the New World were shrinking in area, and if that went on 

 timber would go up in price, and there might even be a wood 

 famine. With the present prices for timber and for farm crops, 

 it was far better to plant waste land than to attempt reclaiming 

 it. He strongly held that, of all the wasteful practices in the 

 world, the reclaiming of waste land was the most wasteful. The 

 reclaimed land might do very well for a year or two, but after 

 that it began to throw back to the original state — the heath and 

 the whins and the weeds began to come up again, and the whole 

 thing was no good. Take, for example, the great land reclama- 

 tions of the late Duke of Sutherland. The intention was good — 

 it was splendid — but the result was a failure, and the land thus 

 reclaimed had again gone back to the whins and the heather. 

 If the land had been planted with trees, it would have given a 

 far more remunerative return. There was a great deal of senti- 

 ment mixed up with the talk of putting land under sheep or 



