32 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr Pitcaithley proposed the toast of " The Imperial Forces." 

 Major Cadell of Grange, in his reply, showed in a humorous 

 but practical way the relationship between the Imperial Forces 

 and Arboriculture. The connection between Arboriculture and 

 the Imperial Forces, he said, was not very obvious at first, 

 and it required a little study to get into it. When people were 

 in circumstances of difficulty and perplexity, the proper thing 

 to do was to turn, as he had turned, to the Bible. He pointed 

 to 2 Samuel xviii. and 6th verse as an illustration of how a 

 w^ood became a great auxiliary force. Our first line of defence, 

 he continued, was the navy ; but the navy would be of little 

 use without coal, and they could not have coal without first 

 having forests. Therefore, it was necessary, from a national 

 point of view, if our navy was to be efficient, that we ought 

 to have efficient forests to begin with. 



Mr John Methven, in proposing the toast of "The Lord 

 Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of Edinburgh," said 

 he wished particularly that night, as they were sitting as an 

 Arboricultural Society, celebrating its Jubilee, to show the con- 

 nection between the Town Council and Arboriculture. The Town 

 Council had had one great scheme. He referred to that being 

 carried out by a department of the Town Council, the Edinburgh 

 and District Water Trust, who were now employed in bringing 

 to this city a bountiful supply of water from the watershed of 

 the Peeblesshire hills. It was generally allowed that where a 

 forest area existed, rain was carried more readily into the 

 reservoirs than if the hills were entirely destitute of trees. He 

 wished to say to those gentlemen of the Edinburgh Water Trust 

 that they might be of great service, not only to them as a 

 Society, but to the science of Arboriculture, if such a scheme 

 as they wished the Government to take up were carried out, 

 in planting a forest area on the hills of Peeblesshire. The 

 Society that day had passed a resolution, and for the benefit 

 of those gentlemen, members of the Water Trust, who were 

 not present at the meeting, he might read part of it. It was 

 this: — "That it is the opinion of the members of the Royal 

 Scottish Arboricultural Society, assembled in annual meeting, 

 that the Board of Agriculture should now take steps to give 

 effect to the recommendation of the Departmental Committee 

 on Forestry, as far as regards Scotland, by providing an 

 estate to serve as a State Forest Demonstration Area." He 



