PRESIDENTS ADDRESS AND DISCUSSION. II 3 



being lost to the nation, this hanging back from the planting 

 of forest lands, and if we would only be gaided by what 

 Dr Borthwick has said, we should be a long way on the road 

 to successful afforestation." 



Mr Charles Robertson said : — "There has been a great deal 

 said about rabbits. Why confine it to rabbits ? I find the 

 hares as bad as the rabbits ? When the plants get up to 2 feet 

 in height the hares attack them, and then they take the top ; 

 they do not go round the bottom like the rabbit." 



Mr J. A. Duthie, Nurseryman, said : — " With regard to forest 

 tree seeds, Dr Borthwick put the whole matter very clearly in 

 urging the better utilisation of home-grown supplies, much of 

 which in the past has been wasted. In case his remarks 

 concerning Scots pine should be misunderstood, perhaps I might 

 be allowed to add that, speaking with thirty years' experience 

 of the nursery trade, I have never heard of any Scottish 

 nurserymen importing seed of Scots pine from continental 

 sources. The foreign species is so subject to the leaf-shedding 

 fungus that it is quite impossible to raise a satisfactory crop of 

 transplants. No practical forester would accept the continental 

 type in place of true native. It partakes more of the 

 characteristics of the Corsican pine, and is altogether a very 

 inferior type of Scots pine compared with our native tree. 

 I am not so hopeful as Dr Borthwick in thinking that all the 

 tree seeds (exotics excepted) required in this country can be 

 got at home. This is perfectly true of Scots pine, which 

 is produced so abundantly in this country that there is not 

 only a sufficient supply for all home requirements, but in 

 good seed years a large surplus is usually exported to France, 

 Denmark, and Norway ; but our home-grown supply of all other 

 species of conifers must be supplemented from abroad. As 

 regards larch, a great many proprietors will not plant native 

 larch, but stipulate for Tyrolese, and will have no other. As a 

 matter of fact, sufficient native larch seed cannot be got in this 

 country to produce the quantity of larch plants annually required 

 for planting. Limited quantities of Scottish-grown Norway 

 spruce and Douglas fir seeds are occasionally off^ered, but 

 never in sufficient quantity to keep up the necessary stocks. 

 Home-grown seed of Douglas fir is frequently so full of 

 Megastigmus as to be almost worthless. 



" The fears expressed three years ago that the outbreak of war 



VOT,. XXXI. PART II. H 



