150 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
No. 3, By “Nit DespERANDUM.” 
The reasons that this writer adduces for the necessity of estab- 
lishing a model forest area and a forestry school are :— 
(1) The presence in this country of wide areas of compara- 
tively unproductive land that could be made to return 
a much improved nett revenue if placed under a system 
of rational sylviculture. 
(2) The rapid growth of our requirements for structural 
timber. 
(3) The rapid diminution in the extent of virgin forests 
abroad, 
(4) The necessity of a proper training-ground for young 
foresters. 
After some pertinent remarks on the duty of the State in 
providing facilities for forestry education and the development 
of commercial forestry, the writer proceeds to show that an area 
of land suitable for the objects in view may be obtained by lease, 
by feu, or by purchase. If the land were obtained on lease, a 
tenancy of one hundred and twenty years, with a mutual break 
at eighty years, and periodically thereafter, is suggested. An 
interesting form of lease is given—probably the first of the kind 
that has ever been drafted in this country—which provides that 
the timber on the land which is leased shall either be paid for by 
the incoming tenant (in this case probably a limited liability 
company), or shall be managed by the tenant without restraint, 
and the nett proceeds of the sales handed over to the landlord. 
All forests created or buildings erected by the tenant are to be 
taken over by the landlord by valuation at the end of the lease, 
by which time, as the writer says, ‘a good deal will have 
happened, and a good deal of knowledge gained.” In our opinion 
there are many insuperable objections to the leasing of land 
or woodlands for experiments, demonstrations, or education in 
forestry. The temporary acquisition of land in this way would 
probably mean its abandonment at a time when the woods had 
been got into a state of the highest value from an educational 
point of view, and this prospect alone is much too serious to make 
the leasing plan feasible. 
Although the writer dismisses the system of feuing land at, say, 
ls. 6d. per acre per annum, without a word of commendation, it 
seems to us that the proposal is quite as worthy of attention as that 
