158 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Tue Best Form oF AN EXPERIMENTAL Forest AREA. 
In dealing with the question as to the best form an experimental 
area should take, it is necessary to keep the main objects to be 
attained steadily in view. Forest science, in the abstract, is so 
comprehensive a subject, that any attempt to embrace it within 
the compass of a necessarily limited scheme, would lead to no 
definite result being obtained for many years. By placing a 
judicious limit to our ambition at first, we are better able to 
inaugurate a scheme based on the principle of steady progression ; 
and by building upon existing foundations, an element of security 
may be introduced which is not likely to fail us at a pinch. Our 
chief aim should be the improvement of the existing systems of 
forestry in Scotland, rather than the introduction of novel methods 
of managing woods which have little prospect of being generally 
adopted ; and in discussing the subject, we may divide it into three 
parts, as follows :— 
1. The demonstration of economic forestry to landowners, and 
the public generally. 
2. The instruction of practical foresters and estate agents in the 
scientific management of woods. 
3. Experiments and researches in connection with the principles 
underlying the practical operations of forestry. 
1. Demonstration of Economic Forestry. 
What is wanted in this direction is a practical demonstration of 
forestry, free from the defects mentioned in the introduction to this 
paper. As we saw, systematic organisation is the chief thing 
needed to transform the forestry of the present into a profitable 
branch of estate work. We must show landowners that the various 
assertions made regarding the benefits of scientific forestry are not 
the mere theories of text-books and lecture-rooms. We must prove 
beyond dispute that forestry is of greater value to an estate as a 
source of income than as a means of raising and sheltering game, 
or its artistic effect upon the landscape. In order to do this, we 
must make our forest area pay, for that will be probably the first 
point to which critics will draw attention. We must endeavour to 
show that much, if not all, personal loss could be avoided by strictly 
economic methods, which have in view the increase of the future 
value of woods. At the same time, little inducement can exist for 
