26 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



afforestation to deer forest owners, but many lairds are not, 

 and have not been, in a financial position to plant trees to any 

 considerable amount. Such will welcome any public scheme 

 of afforestation as being of mutual advantage. The late Sir 

 John Ramsden, proprietor of xA.rdverikie and Benalder forests, 

 may be cited as the most prominent example of a tree-planting 

 laird in the Highlands. He lived long enough to see, as one 

 of the results of his immense expenditure, a great improvement 

 in the weight and condition of his stags and also their heads. 

 Shelter and feeding are the two essentials upon which quality 

 depends ; natural woods which afford deer shelter fall every 

 year more and more into decay, in too few cases no care 

 being taken to extend or replace them by judicious planting. 

 Birch, alder, and oak saplings, of which many natural woods 

 largely consist, are short-lived trees, and no young plants are 

 growing up to replace them. Planting is expensive, and deer 

 and rabbit-proof fencing is necessary to protect the young trees 

 for from twenty to thirty years, according to situation, before 

 the plantation can be thrown open to deer or sheep. Where 

 birch, alder, and oak grow, larch will flourish. Land selected 

 with care will yield revenue very considerably in excess of 

 that returned by sheep grazing ; one instance only need be 

 detailed here. The rent received for a certain sheep farm, of 

 which the present writer had personal knowledge, is ;^4o less 

 ;j^6 paid by the landlord for a supply of basic slag ; the extent 

 including 25 acres of arable land is about 2000 acres, requiring 

 only two men for its maintenance. The landlord has also 

 to bear the expense of maintenance of the buildings and 

 fences, and pay rates and taxes. The tenant, like other sheep- 

 farmers, has to winter his hoggs at a distance at an expense 

 of from 8s. to los. per head. Close by this sheep farm are 

 45 acres of similar ground under wood, planted in 1874, which 

 now yields as it stands £go per acre. Surely this is an 

 argument not to be gainsaid for increasing the area under trees ; 

 sheep can be much more economically produced elsewhere. 

 Similar cases are doubtless familiar to all interested in the 

 question. 



"The low value of much sheep ground is also evidenced by 

 the fact that much is let at 4d. per acre, whereas 14s. may be 

 reckoned as clear rental from timber ; as for employment, while 

 a hirsal of six hundred needs only one man for its 2000 acres, 



