86 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ture and Commerce. This duty has been entered upon in the 

 same spirit as forest conservancy. Sportsmen have been invited 

 to send in the modifications which they desire to see introduced 

 into the existing laws, and, although their opinions are very diverse 

 and frequently contradictory, this is no more than might be ex- 

 pected from the primary labours of any commission, whose duty 

 it is to sift the reasonable from the absurd or forced proposals 

 which are brought under its- notice. The guards or gamekeepers 

 are specially enjoined to make examinations of the contents of 

 the stomachs of the animals which they kill, in order to demon- 

 strate whether their destructiveness to game is in a greater or 

 less proportion to their usefulness to agriculture. 



CONCLUSION. 



And now we have brought those of our readers who have been 

 good enough to follow us, to the end of our short sketch of the 

 Forest Administration of the canton Yaud. Our facts are taken 

 either from personal observation or from official sources. Our 

 conclusions are our own, and ai-e, of course, open to adverse 

 criticism ; but we confess to a very candid admiration for many 

 of the institutions of Switzerland. Viewed on the surface — and 

 if the letter only of the written law be taken — they are democra- 

 tively autoci-atic, by which we mean autocratic in the strongest 

 sense of the word. Viewed in relation to the contentedness and 

 well-being of the people who live under them, and by whose will 

 they exist, they are eminently suited to the country. And with 

 regard to the special department, whose work we have been 

 reviewing, the amelioration of a property, racked to the utmost 

 by waste and ill-usage, has been thoroughly carried out, and this, 

 too, with the support of a people, from whom the temporaiy and 

 partial sacrifice of what in Switzerland is one of the necessaries 

 of life was demanded and was cheerfully submitted to. 



