2 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



proposals are likely to be : I hope we shall have them before 

 us very soon. In the meantime, I should just like to say a few 

 words on the part taken by the Council of this Society in help- 

 ing the Forestry Committee to arrive at their decisions. 



" At the request of the Committee we drew up a statement 

 dealing with the whole problem of State afforestation, in which 

 we set out as clearly and concisely as we could our views and 

 recommendations on the various branches of the subject. The 

 statement has been printed in the volume of our Transactions 

 which has just been published, and I hope to hear that you are 

 prepared to give your approval to the recommendations it con- 

 tains. It would have been more satisfactory if we could have 

 drawn up that statement after direct consultation with the rest 

 of our members. I wish we had been able to do this. Un- 

 fortunately the request of the Committee only reached us a few 

 days after our Annual Meeting had been held. That meeting 

 was attended by members from all parts of Scotland, and it 

 was, of course, impossible to expect them all to come together 

 again a fortnight later. Time was pressing, and as it was 

 necessary to act without delay, the Council prepared and sent 

 up the Memorandum on their own initiative. But though the 

 views expressed in the Memorandum only profess to give the 

 views of the Council, I hope and believe that they reflect very 

 closely the views of our Society as a whole. The problem of 

 State afforestation has been before us so long, and it has been 

 discussed on so many occasions, that there is scarcely a point 

 on which we did not feel acquainted with the views of our 

 fellow-members ; and therefore I am confident that, as a whole, 

 the statement will meet with your approval. There is only one 

 point on which the views of the Society have not been directly 

 expressed, but I think you will say we were justified in the 

 recommendation we made upon it when you know the reasons 

 that influenced us. 



"The point is a very important one, for it concerns the 

 question who should be the official authority to initiate and 

 carry out the policy of national afforestation. Hitherto forestry 

 has been under the control of the Board of Agriculture, and 

 the results, as we all know, have been very unsatisfactory. We 

 hoped that forestry might receive more attention if it were 

 placed under a separate branch of the Board, with a separate 

 staff and a separate fund ; but though we have frequently 



