ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, AUGUST 4, 1891. 165 
practical politics, and something must shortly be done which shall 
give the means for ensuring the permanent and _ progressive 
improvement of wood-cultivation in this country. That this is 
so must be a source of peculiar satisfaction to the members of this 
Society, which for now thirty-eight years has been crying out, 
unfortunately for long in unsympathetic ears, the need there is 
for more attention to scientific principle in the method too 
frequently in operation in dealing with our woods, And more 
than this, our Society may fairly claim that not only has it been 
pointing out during all these years that there is room for im- 
provement in forestry practice, and doing what it could to give 
effect to its teaching, but it has also from the first perceived 
that the real way to secure the betterment that is desirable is by 
giving to those who are to have the care and management of 
woodlands a knowledge of the scientific principles that underlie 
their work ; and has advocated the establishment of a school for 
forestry teaching. It is, I think, not uninteresting to trace the 
successive steps by which the persistent efforts of our Society ~ 
has enabled it to approach the goal to which it has been pushing, 
and which, shall I say, is all but attained to. 
When the Society was founded but little general interest was 
taken in forestry, and in the first years of its existence it had 
much to do to furnish evidence of the need for its creation. 
These were, however, the days of inflated land-values and pros- 
perous trade, and no indication of the depression shortly to set 
in warned proprietors of woodlands that ere many years the 
neglected trees would have to be looked to as carefully as the 
annual crops as a source of revenue. Gradually, however, the 
Society gained the confidence and interest of working foresters, 
and it is one of the features of the Society that it has been 
essentially a Society of practical men. The practical foresters 
of the country have been its backbone, and when the object 
is achieved which we all look for in the immediate future, and 
a Forestry School is established, it will be remembered that 
its institution eventuated from the efforts of practical men to 
obtain that education which would enable them to better their 
practice. 
With its strong following of foresters, the Society prospered, 
stimulating by its prizes intellectual effort on the part of its 
members, and all the while crying out for means of education 
in forestry. It was not, however, until it had reached the 
