I04 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to be assessed under Schedule D, and they pay on the profits. 

 That, of course, is a very minute concession to begin with, 

 because if you happen to have five thousand acres of wood, 

 and you replant eighty or a hundred acres in a year, it is only a 

 very minute portion of the income tax assessed on your woods, 

 but it will grow, and I think it is a thing that, apart from the 

 saving in money, which is very small, everybody should take 

 up and claim as a matter of principle, if they consider it 

 beneficial to do so. 



"Dr Borthwick referred to the question of rabbits. I think 

 public opinion is educated up to the point that if you want to 

 keep rabbits you ought to fence them in, and not let them go 

 on other people's property. The great difficulty is in getting 

 legislation. It is very difficult to see how that legislation should 

 be framed. Within recent weeks the snowstorm was very bad 

 in the South of Scotland, and I took the trouble to go 

 over a good many acres of young plantations, some of them 

 2 or 3 or 4 feet high. There was i foot or i8 inches of snow, 

 and not in the whole of these plantations was I able to discover 

 a single plant eaten by a rabbit, and there was not one yard 

 of wire-netting round them. Had there been any rabbits the 

 damage would have been very serious. 



" I hope there will be some expression of opinion on the 

 subject of young plants. My own belief is that three years is 

 old enough to use many plants. Four-year-old plants are too 

 big. For the Japanese larch, I think that i-year 2-year plants 

 are better — better rooted, more bushy, and they go away faster 

 after they are planted. The distance between plants seems to 

 me very important, but there again the question of initial cost 

 comes in. Plants, to my mind, are quite close enough at 4 feet, 

 and 4 feet is, theoretically, 2750 to the acre, but you may 

 count it 3000. With certain species some authorities give 

 5 feet, but to my mind 4 to 5 feet is a good planting distance 

 for any of the plants that we have to deal with. 



" Dr Borthwick also referred to wood-consuming industries. 

 My opinion is that we have been very much behind other 

 countries in that respect in the minor industries. There is no 

 doubt, I think, that a good deal could be done in connection 

 with charcoal and wood distilling with small modern plants. 

 There may not in a lot of these things be very much actual 

 profit, that is to say, you may sell ;^40o or j£s°o worth 



