TRANSACTIONS 
OF THE 
ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
XIV. Establishment of State Model Forests for Scotland! 
OPINIONS OF FRENCH AND GERMAN EXPERTS ON OUR PRESENT 
Practice IN Forestry. 
In 1881, M. L. Boppe, Inspector in the French State Forest 
Service (now Director of the French Forest School and C. I. E.), 
accompanied by M. Bartet, Sub-Inspector, visited some of the 
more important of our Scottish woods, and wrote a report,’ in 
which he expressed surprise that, of our vast uncultivated lands, 
so small an area as 734,490 acres was classed as woodland—and 
he said :—“ As foresters of the Continental School, accustomed 
to live amongst forests regularly managed, and having for their 
sole object the production of timber, we had no little difficulty in 
understanding the widely different motives which actuate forest 
cultivation in this country.” 
Coming from a country where Natural Regeneration is such 
an important feature of forest management, the French visitors 
“were also struck by the monotonous regularity in the height and 
age of the trees—unmistakable sign of their artificial origin and 
want of methodical management. . . . And Nature, in spite of the 
immetse resources at her disposal, is quite powerless to modify the 
1 Adopted at a meeting of the Council of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural 
Society on 25th May 1898, as embodying the views of the Society on this 
subject. 
2 Transactions, Vol. XI. Part 2. 
VOL. XV. PART III. T 
