THE ANNUAL EXCURSION. 517 



Mr Robertson, forester, Dunrobin, said that, with respect to 

 the German system, they, in their own country, had an equally 

 good system in times past. The old forests which used to 

 abound in this country were never thinned by any forester, and 

 they grew better timber than a great deal of what was grown 

 nowadays. With respect to thinning, he strongly held that 

 they should follow Nature as far as possible — to take out the 

 dead and suppressed trees and leave the others alone. The 

 gentleman who had told them that day of having planted his 

 larch very thin, to prevent them being blown over, and thinned 

 them three times in nine years, was a long way off the mark. A s 

 to Dr Farquharson's comparison of trees with human beings who 

 had to get plenty cubic air space to keep them healthy, the 

 comparison did not hold good at all, because the human beings 

 did not develop superfluous branches. As to draining, he was 

 convinced that to plant wet land without draining it would be 

 simply a throwing away of money. When the Scottish arbori- 

 culturists were in Germany, they saw very little land that 

 required draining. In fact, they only saw a little of that kind 

 of land in the Harz Mountains. As to planting alders in wet 

 land, he could take Mr Tennant to wet lands where alders had 

 been planted, but would not grow at all. As to the Sutherland 

 reclamations, that reclaimed land had not gone back to the 

 original waste state, as it was now mostly under grass, and it 

 was much better than the land that had never been reclaimed. 

 A great deal of planting had been carried out in the Lairg 

 district, and the gentleman who recommended planting without 

 draining should go there for an object-lesson. As to planting 

 peat-bogs without being drained, he could show them some peat- 

 bogs up that way which had been planted a good many years 

 ago, and the plants to-day were not much higher than the bottle 

 on the table. That was up beyond Shinness, on very bleak, 

 exposed ground. There were a few patches where the timber 

 would have grown had it got the chance. It was enclosed by a 

 low dyke, which had a couple of wires on the top of it, but 

 whenever a snowstorm came the sheep came over the dyke and 

 ate up the young trees. In that county, whenever anything 

 black appears above the snow, nearly every living animal, whether 

 horse, deer, or sheep, makes straight for it, and it gets little 

 chance of living unless fully enclosed. 



Mr Eugene Wason, M.P., said he had done a little planting, 



