THE society's JUBILEE DINNER. 37 



find in the second volume there is a review of Mr M'Intosh's 

 work on the larch disease, and I find it claimed that he has " con- 

 densed the opinion of above fifty highly respectable authorities." 

 Now, if there were fifty authorities on the larch disease in the 

 year 1854, we need not be surprised if there are a good many 

 opinions at the present day. The writer of this review of 

 M'Intosh's book, like the gentleman who had been talking 

 about lunacy, has a shot at England. I notice it is a 

 characteristic in the early volumes that they have to get 

 their poke at England, and the writer says that the reason 

 that the larch was so much diseased at that time was because 

 it was degenerate, and its degeneracy was owing to many 

 trees being raised from seed from certain trees " grown in the 

 rich soil and murky atmosphere of London nurseries." Another 

 article on larch disease is by Mr M'Corquodale, who gives 

 expression to a sentiment which a great many of you, I am sure, 

 would also quite willingly take into your own mouths. He says 

 that, " After upwards of thirty years' extensive practice, and 

 much arduous investigation as a practical forester, I am con- 

 strained to dissent from the views commonly entertained on this 

 subject." It is only two years ago — I do not think it is as much 

 — since a discussion on this very subject began, one very wet day, 

 in the county of Ayr, and that discussion went on through the 

 pages of the Press, and I am perfectly certain you will find many 

 came to the conclusion — " I am constrained to dissent from the 

 views commonly entertained on this subject." Well, the larch 

 disease has been a fertile subject for writing. It may have been 

 a serious business to those who have grown larches, but I am 

 bound to say that the subject has been extremely valuable in 

 developing sylvicultural polemics. I find the accounts of the 

 €arly years of the Society were very modest as compared with 

 what they are now, but they made no mistake about what they 

 did with their balances. They did not say " Credit Bank by 

 balance," but they put it in plain English — " Cash put into Bank." 

 I find that a year or two after the Society started it appears to 

 have got into somewhat low water. In one year the arrears 

 were considerably more than the subscriptions. The sum of 

 j(^io was taken in subscriptions, and between ^j^^iz and ;£i^ 

 stood out in arrear, but the council, or secretary, or treasurer — 

 treasurer, I suppose it was — was much more diffident in the way 

 in which he reminded people that subscriptions should be paid 



