82 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
to a much wider public than that of our membership ; and as the 
organisation that has most effectively sought to promote good 
forestry, we ought to appeal to a wide circle: from that point 
of view the papers or essays which we print are the chief part of 
our work, and I sometimes wonder whether the account of our home 
excursions might not be limited to a critique, of which that of 
Professor Schwappach was so brilliant an example, or else that it 
should be printed separately. For if an excursion to Germany is 
worth a full record, that of a trip to the South of England might 
be dealt with in less than a hundred of our pages, The mere 
details of a home trip scarcely earn immortality; and while these 
domestic incidents, no doubt, interes) many members of the 
Society, they would be read by few of those whom we include, or 
hope to include, amongst our general readers, They will want to 
know what the Society has to tell or to do in the direction of 
securing a firm basis for the profession of British Forestry. 
Another item of our affairs might be reconsidered. It is 
whether Edinburgh is always the best centre for annual or 
general meetings? Mr Dewar of Beaufort, and other Highland 
foresters have spoken to me strongly in favour of Perth; they 
would engage to attend at Perth, they say, when they could not 
come to Edinburgh. I know that this point has been discussed, 
but with the aid of the Forth Bridge, Perth has become ‘very 
accessible to all Scotland. It is for us a natural centre, and 
without expressing any opinion of my own, let me suggest that, 
in the interests of Highland Forestry (which is no mean part of 
the whole), the matter is worth attention. 
There has been a correspondence regarding Sir Robert Menzies’s 
proposal that another Forestry Exhibition should be held, but 
the feeling of your General Purposes Committee was that this 
suggestion should be reserved until the approach of the jubilee of 
the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society in 1904. 
Various subjects lying before the Society have been in abeyance 
pending the Essay Competition, which was arranged to try to 
collect the widest range of opinion regarding the provision of 
forestry education. The competition has not been so successful 
as could have been wished ; but upon the essays, and the judges’ 
report drafted by Professor Somerville, considerable discussion 
should arise. Out of all this must come the definite recommenda- 
tions of the Society upon the provisions it deems necessary for 
the instruction of foresters, which will, no doubt, in due course 
