PRESIDENTS ADDRESS AND DISCUSSION. Ill 



it is more coniferous timber that we will have to look to and 

 produce. As regards coniferous timber the demand at the 

 moment has been for Scots pine, but although that is so it is 

 not to say we are to plant only Scots pine in the future. 

 At the same time we see, as has been already pointed out, that 

 we are on the right way as regards hardwoods, and we must try 

 to judge as to what is to be the immediate necessity in the way 

 of coniferous timbers. Corsican pine is very well adapted for 

 sandy soils, and on some arid and dry soils I think it surpasses 

 the Scots pine as a drought resister, and it is eminently suited 

 for a great many dry situations. White American spruce, 

 Picea alba, is excellent for exposed situations, and for shelter- 

 belts and the margins of plantations. It is a very fine tree, and 

 one that gives a remarkably good return in pit-wood at a very 

 early age. Banks pine is planted rather sparingly, and we do not 

 know a very great deal about it. It has been tried in Germany 

 and other places on the Continent, and it is most remarkable 

 how it can adapt itself to the very poorest soils. Also it is 

 absolutely frost-hardy. Unless we can produce these things 

 quickly the game is lost. We want to get them and get them in 

 such quantities that they can be available the moment they are 

 required." 



Mr Adam Spiers, Timber Merchant, said : — " Dr Borthwick's 

 address is the most lucid and concise that has been put before 

 this Society in my time, because, I think, he has taken a grasp of 

 every item that is necessary to go on with successful afforestation. 

 The great objection that I have is that we have waited far too 

 long at the beginning, and evidently we are still at the 

 beginning. I think all the scientific and practical minded 

 men in this room know perfectly well what trees we should 

 plant in Scotland. He is a very short-sighted individual who 

 moves through this country and cannot see the enormous 

 possibilities of our country for the production of timber, and I 

 was glad to hear Dr Borthwick say that we in this country can 

 produce a larger variety of timber than any other. With that I 

 quite agree. More than that, I think there is no country 

 produces such a variety of timber and of such a quality as 

 Scotland does. Take our British oak. There is not a waggon- 

 builder, or a man who needs material of the greatest strength, 

 who would want anything else but British oak. Take our ash. 

 There is no ash comes into this country that can come near it. 



