64 TRANSACTIONS OK ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



been done for the practical forester. No doubt these men 

 appreciate this sort of thing, and what has been done proves 

 that if you provide technical education for the practical man 

 you get very good results. I am not speaking of the men who 

 go through the Universities and take forestry degrees, men of 

 that sort have had to go abroad ; but these practical men are the 

 men we want in this country, and they are doing the work of 

 forestry at the present moment. Of course, once we have a 

 Forest Board set up with all the proper equipment, no doubt 

 provision will be made for the technical education of these men, 

 but in the meantime it would be a good thing, I think, if some- 

 thing could be done for them, and I have to ask your sympathy 

 in the matter of providing something of this sort to enable 

 them to tide over, so to speak, the interval between now and 

 when the Board will be set up." 



Sir Kenneth Mackenzie. — "We wanted to bring to your 

 notice, what I think you know very well, the advantages that 

 will accrue if in schemes of afforestation which may be embarked 

 on after the war the question of small holdings is taken in 

 connection with these schemes. I have little doubt that the 

 country is practically pledged to a large number of small 

 holdings being created after the war, and the destruction that 

 has been caused by the war necessitates some Government 

 scheme of re-aflforestation. Whatever re-afforestation scheme 

 takes place, it necessarily must begin in those areas where the 

 soil is poor and not capable of great food production. We feel 

 that when areas are selected for that afforestation, such areas 

 should be selected as would admit of a body of small-holders 

 being settled in each afforestation area. You know the country 

 practically as well as I do, and you are aware that when 

 cultivators have to deal with a poor soil and climate, and are at 

 a distance from markets, it is practically impossible for the small- 

 holder to make an economic living on that class of holding. 

 But that class of holding does not require labour for every day 

 of the year. The small-holder has many days in the year in 

 which to earn wages, and we feel that if these small holdings 

 were made in blocks of a sufficient size, and a school was 

 established in connection with each block, that it would be very 

 good for the small-holders, because they could get wages from 

 the afforestation business every day when they were not 

 employed on their holdings. It would further be extremely 



