30 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



has been very largely imported. I know one instance of 

 American ash being sold in this city at 7s. gd. per cubic foot. 

 Neither American nor Japanese ash is as good as home-grown 

 ash. We want to get the Government, or somebody powerful 

 enough, to stimulate the national interest in afforestation, and 

 until we can do something of that kind, the thing is hopeless. 

 Patch-work forestry is no use in this country. Scotland is well 

 adapted for growing timber on large areas, and I am certain 

 it can be done. Sir Charles Bine Renshaw told us what the 

 possibilities were. The requirements of the railway companies 

 are enormous, and we can easily grow the timber. The home 

 sleepers, given the same time for drying as the foreign sleepers 

 take in transport, will last a longer time than any imported from 

 other countries. What we want to do is to press forward and 

 try to show to the country generally that forestry has been one 

 of our most neglected industries, and is likely to continue so 

 until some strong effort is made to prove to those who have 

 the power to help us that it is a national asset, and one the 

 country can never regret spending a great deal of money 

 on." 



Mr A. D. Richardson, Edinburgh, said : — " I was very much 

 interested in Sir Charles Bine Renshaw's address. I think it 

 was a most instructive address and conveyed a great deal of 

 information of great value to foresters. In connection with 

 Mr Carlow's statement on pit-timber, and especially what he 

 said about oak timber for waggon building, I think there is 

 no doubt whatever that what has been said about British oak 

 is perfectly right. There is no foreign oak that will compare with 

 British oak for durability. Of course, you cannot get the same 

 long straight lengths out of it, as a rule, that you get out of 

 American oak, but so far as quality goes, American oak is not 

 in it. But the American oak is not the same oak at all. It is 

 the American white oak, a different species, and it does not 

 produce such strong timber as British oak. But if you compare 

 home-grown oak with the same oak grown on the Continent, say 

 that from Austria, a great deal of which came into this country 

 in the form of scantlings, and for barrel making, you will find 

 that the latter is very inferior stuff compared with British oak. 

 Some years ago a great sensation was caused by some people 

 in the south advocating the planting of the American white 

 ash in this country instead of the British ash. That would be 



