154 TRANSACTIONS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



than these. When it shall please God to end the war, we shall 

 strive to build many things anew, and to build them better. 

 Here at least in forestry we have a site unbuilt upon, un- 

 compromised. Let us try to put in good foundations and to 

 build upon them something that will endure. 



" One word as to the relations between agriculture and forestry. 

 In reply to a recent deputation, the Secretary for Scotland said 

 that forestry is the hand-maid of agriculture. In justice to 

 Mr Munro it must be remembered that he was speaking to a 

 deputation not of foresters but of farmers. But with all defer- 

 ence I demur to Mr Munro's definition. Forestry is not a 

 hand-maid or a maid-of-all-work, or any other sort of maid. It 

 is a national industry, with independent interests which touch 

 at many points those of agriculture, and sometimes come into 

 sharp conflict with them. It is the task of those of us who are 

 concerned equally with both agriculture and forestry to try to 

 reconcile this conflict of interests, and I think you will agree 

 with me that we cannot do it by putting either the forester or 

 the farmer in exclusive control of our policy. Now our ex- 

 perience on a small scale is certain to arise on a much larger 

 one. It is certain that differences of opinion and of interests 

 will arise between the Board of Agriculture and the Forestry 

 Administration, and it is no solution of the problem to give the 

 last word to the Board of Agriculture. When there is serious 

 disagreement as to policy, it should be for the responsible 

 Mmister or, on grave issues, for the Cabinet to decide between 

 the two departments. Let us return for a moment to the 

 example of France. There forestry is associated with agri- 

 culture (and in my judgment rightly associated) under a single 

 Minister. But the two departments are absolutely and entirely 

 distinct in personnel from top to bottom. The higher appoint- 

 ments in the Forestry Administration are made not by the 

 Minister but by the Chief of the State. The Director of forestry, 

 and he alone, is responsible for the Forest Service. By all 

 means let forestry be associated with agriculture, but let us 

 have clear ideas, and don't let us think for an instant of putting 

 the Administration of Forestry under the control of the Chair- 

 man of the Board of Agriculture. There is a perfectly natural 

 place inside our existing system for the chief Administrator of 

 forestry. He should be on an equality with the Chairman of 

 the Board of Agriculture, and like him responsible to the 



