62 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
of State aid to planting by private proprietors in Nassau, But 
this cannot be much, and need not be in reality anything. 
Nurseries, or “ Férst Gartens,” are scattered all over the country, 
and from these, surplus seedlings can be given to proprietors who 
will promise to plant them, with positive advantage to the 
nurseries themselves. If money is asked for them, although I 
will not allude to the shabbiness of the demand, they can be given 
at cost price, which, if conscience enters into the calculation, will 
be infinitesimal. It is more the moral support and recognition 
by the State that encourages private individuals to plant than the 
actual money assistance. 
I am getting far away, it may be thought, from my beech 
forests, and yet not only their dense masses, but the ‘‘ shimmer ” 
of their countless leaves in the mixed woods of the country, are 
with me as I write. I see, too, the leaf-covered tunnels of 
beeches, which form the favourite alleys of the private gardens. 
And I see, in what Selby, I think, tells us was its original 
habitat, the red foliage of the copper beech contrasting with and 
toning down the mass of green. If I have unwarrantably made 
use of them, in the hope of attracting further attention to the 
policy of which they are the living tokens—a policy of pulling 
together by Government and people, under circumstances of 
difficulty, too intricate for their separate and divided efforts—I 
shall ask the pardon of my readers. I have not pulled the bow 
too strongly. I have carefully refrained from even mentioning 
those other measures of “relief” to proprietors of waste lands, 
which may commend themselves to the attention of our newly 
formed County Councils. I have not set forth an ideal, but an 
existing, and, I may add, a successful state of matters; and in 
doing so I have purposely avoided all those details of forest 
administration which have been once and again explained by far 
abler pens than mine ; and, except for the purpose of giving some 
idea of the size of these grand beech forests, I have kept clear of 
statistics and figures, which may be elsewhere ascertained. Those 
who visit our Continental neighbours will do well to examine for 
themselves the raison d’étre of the forests of the country, which 
will everywhere afford them at once a playground and a study. 
