114 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



would lead to an acute shortage of tree seeds have happily not been 

 fulfilled. Excellent larch and spruce seed from the French and 

 Swiss Alps have been available, quite as good a type, I believe, 

 as formerly imported from the Tyrol. I have grave doubts in my 

 own mind whether the seed formerly imported from Germany 

 was always secured from the best sources, as regards elevation, 

 age, and quality and type of seed-bearing trees. For seed of 

 our two most valuable exotic conifers, Sitka spruce and Douglas 

 fir, we must look for many a long day to the western states of 

 North America. With regard to hardwoods — ash, beech, 

 sycamore, and oak — the necessity of importing these from 

 abroad should not often arise. Considerable quantities of 

 seeds of these are collected in Scotland, but it is a pity that 

 supplies could not be drawn from some of the fine stands of 

 hardwoods located in the South of England. For sowing this 

 season there is no shortage of tree seeds, except beech, the 

 crop of which is a failure all over Europe. I fear that the 

 present demand for plants, combined with the shortage of 

 labour, scarcely warrants nurserymen making extensive sow- 

 ings ; but if a shortage of plants should arise, do not blame the 

 nurseryman. Create a healthy demand for forest trees, and I am 

 perfectly certain that British nurserymen will provide a supply. 



" I am glad that Dr Borthwick emphasised the necessity of 

 developing our native tree seed industry, and it is capable of 

 extensive development, not only in finding a use for large 

 quantities of seed, the collecting of which would provide a 

 great deal of employment in forest areas, but in locating the 

 best areas from which seed ought to be collected. Nursery- 

 men are often blamed, and, I believe, without cause, as to the 

 sources from which some of our native seeds are collected ; but 

 the only sources of supply in this country are private woodlands. 

 I have often urged that all seed-bearing areas be scheduled, 

 and the seed collected under expert supervision. The seed of a 

 crop which requires eighty to a hundred years to come to 

 maturity warrants every care being taken in securing the best. 

 The North of Scotland is the only district in the United 

 Kingdom where the business of seed-collecting has been a 

 recognised industry for many years; and when reafforestation 

 really comes, seed-collecting ought to become one of our most 

 important rural industries. To show what can be done in 

 strictly woodland areas, one estate in the North has already 



