202 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
work of the planter, or repair the errors committed by woodcutters. 
When, under such circumstances, the time arrives for the trees to 
be cut down, or should they be uprooted by a hurricane, the forest 
disappears in its entirety, owing to the total want of young growth, 
which is necessary as a link between the old forest and the new 
one which ought to be created. Such, at least, appears to us to be 
the case in all the forests that we visited in the valley of the Tay 
and its tributaries, and farther north, near the foot of Cairngorm. 
Not far from a mansion to which are attached some of the 
pleasantest recollections of our tour, we saw the remains of a noble 
forest, which some twenty years ago had been cut down and con- 
verted into railway sleepers. The sight of the huge stumps, 
blackened by time, with their gnarled roots twisting themselves 
over the ground, gave us the idea of some vast charnel-house. 
This scene of utter ruin was indeed a sad spectacle, though the 
present proprietor is doing his best to again cover his estate with 
timber ; with a better system he might have been spared both time 
and expense.” 
Fifteen years later, in 1896, Dr Adam Schwappach, Professor of 
Forestry at Eberswalde, in Prussia, came over at the invitation of 
the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, and he also wrote a 
report,! in which he expressed himself as follows :— 
“The main difference in the management of woods in Scotland 
and in Germany is found in the manner of thinning. The specimens 
of thinning that I met with at Dunkeld, Scone, and Airthrey were 
entirely opposed to what we would consider good practice in 
Germany. . . . It seemed to me during my short visit, that 
woods are greatly over-thinned in Scotland, and are too much 
managed like the trees in a park. The great mistake that Scottish 
foresters make is to start thinning too early, in order to give the 
trees sufficient room to develop large crowns, and to grow rapidly 
in thickness. The object would appear to be an attempt to induce 
the woods to furnish some saleable produce, such as sleepers, at 
the earliest possible age. 
‘“‘ However desirable early returns may be from the point of 
view of the landlord or of the forester, the fact must not be lost 
sight of that they are obtained at a great sacrifice. Trees grown 
in woods managed in this way have not the opportunity to clean 
their stems naturally of dead branches, and therefore it is necessary 
1 Transactions, Vol. XV. Part 1. 
