THE society's JUBILEE DINNER. 35 



because, although it is celebrating its fiftieth birthday, fifty years 

 in the life of a society are no more than the years that go to 

 form the period of existence of what a forester calls a sapling. 

 I suppose if we were to compare the life of the Society with 

 the life of an individual, we should say it has passed the period 

 of its youth, that its wild oats are behind it, and that it is now 

 going to enter into a vigorous inheritance. Well, gentlemen, 

 with 1016 members in the books, and ^^1200 in the bank, 

 this Society may, I think, look pleasantly out into the future. 

 I should not like to predict what the membership may be fifty 

 years hence, but if the rate of increase in the future is as it 

 has been in the past, you will get a figure that will rather 

 astonish you. Under a sense of the responsibility of proposing 

 the toast of this Society, I endeavoured to fortify myself by 

 looking into one or two of the earlier volumes of the Transactions, 

 and if any member has got a complete set of the Trans- 

 actions of this Society, I will take it upon me to congratulate 

 him. I found that it was one of the most difficult tasks I have 

 attempted, to put my hands on the first and second volumes of 

 the Transactions. If I were to name the public libraries in London 

 that I have ransacked with the view of finding these volumes, 

 and searched for them in vain, you would, I am sure, hardly 

 credit me. I found a great deal that was interesting in the 

 early volumes of the Transactions of this Society. I found 

 that even in those days there was an agitation for experimental 

 areas. I found that it was being urged that the landowners in 

 the neighbourhood of Edinburgh should place their woods under 

 experimental treatment, and that they should allow foresters to 

 visit their plantations, and to see what scientific management 

 could effect. I found that those early writers were a great deal 

 more modest than ourselves. To-day we talk glibly of thousands 

 of acres for experiments. In those days they appeared to be 

 satisfied with contemplating the prospect of having half a dozen 

 trees under experiment. There is a very interesting article in 

 one of the early volumes, which is signed " Justitia," and with 

 regard to the writer of it, the secretary of that day could get 

 no information, although he had done his best to find out who 

 he was. Apparently the article so impressed him that he did 

 not hesitate to print it. Nobody seems to know who " Justitia " 

 was. " Justitia " gives vent to the following suggestion : — " The 

 Town Council likewise " (after he had suggested that neigh- 



