REPORT OF GENERAL MEETING. 1 3 



forestry has been held up here. I think we, perhaps, as a 

 society, have been a little slack in the matter, but our 

 hesitation to press it home has sprung from a certainty that 

 Mr Sutherland and his colleagues in the Forestry Section 

 were doing their very best, and from fear that any action on our 

 part might embarrass them. And certainly during the very 

 brief period that Mr Tennant was Secretary for Scotland he 

 reversed this state of things. He brought the control of the 

 funds of the Board of Agriculture more directly under the control 

 of the Secretary for Scotland, and he insisted on funds for the 

 planting of the estate of Borgie out of the funds of the Board. 

 I have no doubt his successor, Mr Munro, will see through this 

 project — the first and only attempt the Board has yet made in 

 the direction of afforestation." 



Sir Charles Bine Renshaw, Bart., said : — " I take it that the 

 invitation which was extended to me to be present to-day to take 

 part in your proceedings really had for its object an expression, 

 on the part of one who is associated with railway work in 

 Scotland, of willingness and readiness to avail ourselves of 

 supplies of home timber, if and when they are placed at our 

 disposal, on a larger scale than we have hitherto done. The 

 immediate position with regard to timber supplies in this country, 

 as the Chairman remarked in his opening speech, is a very 

 serious one. An inter-departmental committee is sitting which 

 is regulating the use of timber as far as it is available, and on 

 that committee the railway companies are represented. I saw 

 a report in connection with the subject as recently as 4th July, 

 and it is not very cheerful reading, with regard to the immediate 

 prospects of getting sufficient supplies of timber. The position 

 of the railway companies at the present time is almost as difficult 

 a one as the position of the Arboricultural Society in its relations 

 to the Government and the policy which the Government is 

 carrying out with regard to the Society. We are expected to 

 maintain in thorough efficiency the transport services of the 

 country. We are getting no steel rails ; the use of sleepers for 

 our permanent way has been largely reduced in consequence of 

 the shortness of the supply of timber, and only within the past 

 fortnight an edict has been issued that we are to cease to creosote 

 timber, because the creosote is needed for other purposes. 

 That of itself is a serious shortening of the sleeper supply of 

 the country, because our experience has shown that whereas 



