166 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
appropriate period of its life—its majority—that the Society saw 
a definite step taken towards the furnishing of the much-needed 
forestry teaching—the acquisition of Inverleith Grounds by the 
Town Council of Edinburgh and by the Crown to form an arboretum 
of the Royal Botanic Garden, and to be used for scientific instruc- 
tion. In the negotiations which led to this purchase, the influence 
of the Society made itself felt. 
It is now some years since the Arboretum was acquired, and 
some, I know, have been inclined to question whether it has 
fulfilled the object for which it was secured. Well, to them and 
to you I would say that, if as yet everything that the more sanguine 
expected has not come about, the institution of the Arboretum has 
already given considerable impetus to the cause of forestry. It 
has acted as a centre upon which ideas of progress could focus, 
and, as I shall presently point out more fully, it is destined, I 
hope, to satisfy in the near future the claims, in respect of teaching, 
which the most enthusiastic of us could urge. 
Following upon the establishment of the Arboretum, which had 
set people talking of forestry in a way they had not previously 
thought of doing, the Society made another important move in 
promoting the Forestry Exhibition 
the eyes of many people to the interests involved in forestry. 
an exhibition which opened 
Unfortunately, the financial result did not provide a surplus 
sufficient for the object the Society had in view when it entered 
on so large an undertaking—viz., the endowment of a system of 
forestry teaching in Edinburgh. But although the hopes that 
had been formed in this respect were not realised, the exhibition 
contributed largely to the advancement of interest in forestry 
questions, and strengthened the Society for its further efforts to 
obtain what it had so long sought after. 
Soon thereafter there came to the Society an honour, a not 
unmerited one—its Royal Charter. I need hardly say we are all 
proud of the distinction, and we are glad of it alike because it set 
a seal of approval upon the work done by the Society in the past, 
and because it gives greater weight to the endeavours of the Society 
in the future. 
I have singled out these three events in the past of the Society 
as worthy of special notice, and you will, I believe, share with me 
the opinion that they, each of them, fix important positions in 
our march onwards in the cause of forestry. And during all this 
time, what of interest in forestry elsewhere? In our own town 
