22 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



he hoped the Committee would not take long in its deliberations 

 and would propose some practical scheme. He (Sir Andrew 

 Agnew) suggested that the great anxiety of the Society was 

 to have a separate Department, but the Secretary for Scotland 

 said that something larger must be done, and that some big 

 practical proposal would be made which would do away with 

 the necessity of the appointment of a Department of this 

 kind. This was a matter on which they would like to have 

 an assurance from the Government in the House of Commons. 



Lord Lovat, who followed the President, said that he wanted 

 to emphasise three points — (i) The necessity for a separate 

 Department; (2) for a survey by which they might be able to 

 learn the exact number of acres suitable for planting in 

 Scotland, and a detailed survey of the most suitable places for 

 afforestation ; and (3) the encouragement of planting by the 

 State. The landowner had the land, the experience and the 

 men, while the State had the money. He reminded the meeting 

 that up till now the whole of the planting had been done by 

 the private landowners. All interested should now be encouraged 

 to co-operate in the work of afforestation. He wished to deal 

 with the Highlands. There he hoped that the State would 

 come forward and take a position in the afforestation of 

 Scotland similar to what had been done by the State in other 

 nations. The driving power of forestry which would make an 

 appeal to the people of the country was that it was the cheapest 

 way of settling more people on the land. It was the cheapest 

 way, because every single individual whom they would put 

 down in connection with afforestation in these glens of the 

 Highlands would be a definite addition to the population, and 

 no one would be displaced. By forestry they would get one 

 man set on the land immediately for every hundred acres planted, 

 and after a short time they would get one man settled on every 

 25 or 50 acres. They could purchase suitable land on places of 

 the West Coast at from jT^z to ;Qi an acre, and they could plant 

 it at a cost of from jQt^ to ;^'5 an acre, and they thus would get an 

 individual settled on the soil at an original capital expenditure 

 of something like ^-/^looo. The cost of settlement by small 

 holdings was two or three times more than this. The land suit- 

 able for afforestation in the Highlands had been placed as high 

 as 4,000,000 acres. He did not think it was as much, but it was 

 certainly not less than 2,000,000 acres, on which it would be 



