IIG TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



for foresters to send portions of a diseased tree for examination to 

 scientific men 1 " " Quite possible." — " Would it not be a sufficient 

 way of finding out the nature of the disease 1 " " It might be. I 

 have sent specimens, and I have found scientific men to differ very 

 much about the causes." — " Do not you think if scientific men 

 differ so much about them, that partially scientific or wholly un- 

 scientific men would differ a great deal more 1 " " No doubt." — 

 " And you think it possible for working foresters with anything like 

 a moderate education to acquire such a knowledge of the diseases of 

 trees as to make it really worth while their going into that 1" "I 

 think they would; I do not see anything to prevent it." 



"You just now mentioned the education of gardeners, and you said 

 that no gentleman would take a gardener who was not a properly 

 qualified man ; but there is no school for gardeners as far as I am 

 aware either in Scotland or in England 1 " " No, but then they go 

 to good gardens to learn." — " They are apprenticed, in fact 1 " 

 " Yes." — " Do not you think a more practicable way of getting 

 hold of working foresters is to have them apprenticed to good 

 foresters who are at present working foresters, rather than to send 

 them to some centralised school 1 " "At present there are very few 

 large establishments like gardens where a number of apprentices 

 would be taken in."—" Are there not sufficient of those to be able 

 to train up a sufficient supply of new foresters 1" "I do not think 

 so. I know Mr M'Corquodale, of Scone, takes pupils, or he did ; 

 and I have had one or two myself, but they came as labourers. I 

 took no fee, and I had not them put under apprenticeship. They 

 simply saw the operations as they went on. There was no agree- 

 ment whatever. They just came and went when they saw proper." 

 — " Do you think it would be possible to get any knowledge of 

 forestry, sufficient to give some kind of inkling, as you say in 

 Scotland, to young men, by having some tuition at the elementary 

 schools on that subject]" " That is well worthy of consideration." 

 — " Do you think the Government would be justified in giving a 

 grant, making it what they call a special subject 1 " " Yes." — 

 " Giving a grant to such a subject as forestry"?" " Yes, they do so 

 now for agriculture." — "Not in elementary schools'?" "It is a 

 special subject under the Science and Art Department." 



" Do you think moorland at sixpence an acre might be very pro- 

 fitably planted with trees ? " " No doubt." — " What would be the 

 cost per acre of planting the cheapest place on a large scale "? " 

 "About £2 an acre."— " Fencing and alU " "Yes, if the planta- 



