24 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of trees that had run up to a height of 90 ft. would only bear a 

 crop of 48 or 49 trees per acre, and this quite irrespective of the 

 fact that a shade-enduring crop of beech, sycamore, spruce, or 

 silver fir should stand far thicker than a light-demanding crop of 

 oak, larch, or Scots pine. And this rough rule appears to have 

 been commonly applied in practice, because it was estimated "that 

 it takes 2200 full-grown trees, or the matured crop of 44 acres of 

 woodland, to furnish timber for a single 74-gun ship," — which shows 

 a stock of only 50 trees per acre, standing about 30 ft. apart. 



The retrograde passiveness which subsequently prevailed is 

 shown by another Quarterly Revie^v article, in 1876, on "Orna- 

 mental and Useful Tree-Planting.'' This was an essay on land- 

 scape gardening, and dealt with the more purely ornamental 

 side of Arboriculture, its keynote being that, " if, as was said in 

 the outset, trees are a special passion with Englishmen, the future 

 of our woodlands and forests demands that an interest in their 

 culture and conservation should be spread far and wide among 

 our countrymen, and rise superior to utilitarian calculations or 

 the selfish pleadings of private interest." And legislation assumed 

 very much the same careless tone. The immediate pressure about 

 timber having been relieved, all the former concern as to the 

 national importance of British woodlands appears to have become 

 completely forgotten ; it seems to have passed absolutely and 

 entirely from the recollection both of the public and of their 

 representatives in Parliament. 



In Scotland, however, the necessity for instruction in Forestry 

 was being kept in view by the Highland and Agricultural 

 Society and the Scottish Arboricultural Society. A Forestry 

 Exhibition was held at Edinburgh in 1884, in the hope that a 

 surplus would be earned sufficient for the endowment of a Chair 

 of Forestry in the Edinburgh University; but though in other 

 respects successful, this object was not achieved. This example 

 has often since been followed. In 1893 an Exhibition of Horti- 

 culture and Forestry was held at Earl's Court (London); in 1901 

 the Irish Exhibition at Cork had a section for Forestry; and 

 since 1902 the Forestry exhibits have formed a regular part of 

 the Highland and Agricultural Society's Show in Scotland, In 

 1904 the Royal Agricultural Society of England also formed a 

 Forestry Exhibition at their annual Show in London. One 

 effect, however, of the action of these Societies was to revive an 

 interest in Forestry, and this found its expression in the appoint- 



