8 



position. Proceeding, he said he had been four years President 

 of the Society, and it was only natural he should take that 

 opportunity of expressing very sincerely his thanks to the 

 Members for their kindness during his four years in office, 

 because he had had a great deal of enjoyment as President of the 

 Society. He trusted that many of them would always recollect 

 the way in which they had been brought together on many 

 different occasions during those four years, in pleasure, and some- 

 times, on the sea at least, in pain, but they had warstled through 

 it all, and he thanked the Society extremely for all the kindness 

 they had extended to him. Anything he had been able to do as 

 President had been done as a labour of love. They had heard 

 more or less the transactions of the Society in brief, and he 

 thought they might consider that they had been very satisfactory. 

 They had a most interesting trip to Sweden. Of course, there 

 were some of them who were a little captious about the state of 

 matters in Sweden, and some, on the other hand, held that there 

 was a great deal there not merely to admire, but also to be 

 humbly imitated. They received nothing but the greatest 

 possible kindness there, and he thought, so far as the limited 

 time allowed them, they were able to see a great deal that was 

 interesting, and a great deal that they could honestly admire, and 

 they came back feeling that the interest taken in matters arbori- 

 ciiltural in Sweden was an interest that might be well copied, and, 

 perhaps, even increased in this country. Although the part of 

 Sweden they visited was in a sort of transition state, still they 

 felt the interest in a large portion of that country was being ftdly 

 maintained, and, perhaps, maintained to a greater degree than 

 the interest in similar matters was maintained in this country. 

 That was a point that he should like to refer to for a moment, 

 because there was no use hoping for success in any matter, 

 whether arboricultural or otherwise, unless interest was put into 

 it and kept in it. It was the bounden duty of all classes in this 

 country who were interested in arboriculture, whether they were 

 lairds or factors, or foresters or workmen, to put interest into 

 their work, or they would never have a successful issue. The 

 work the Society had done had been, he felt confident, a work 

 of great advantage in Scotland, but he was aware there was left to 

 his successors in the chair a considerable amount of work which 

 it had not been possible to overtake at the present time. He 

 should welcome any progress, and he should always be ready to 



