President's Address. 193 



Mr Thomas Greig of Glencarso zealously attended our 

 meetings when in Edinburgh, and contributed more than 

 one paper. 



Mr Boyd referred, in conclusion, to the International 

 Exibition of Forestry just closed, which had been in- 

 augurated mainly through the offices of the Scottish 

 Arboricultural Society. Such an Exhibition should 

 convince us of our insular ignorance and apathy regarding 

 this branch of botanical study. The Japanese Court 

 alone was a proof that this strange people were ahead 

 of us in a national forestry scheme. The forests of this 

 country do not amount to so much as 4 per cent, of the 

 total acreage, not so much as one-tenth of the proportion 

 of forests in Sweden ; but those who are best informed 

 in those matters say that the acreage of woods in Scotland 

 should be increased fivefold at least. An ameliorating 

 efi'ect would thus be produced upon the climate and the 

 conditions of agriculture, so as to raise permanently the 

 value of arable land in many counties by at least 5s. per 

 acre. But India and the colonies are the great fields in 

 which our foresters must work. May one of the fruits of 

 this Exhibition in Edinburgh be the supply of the great 

 national want of a School of Forestry, where our sons may 

 be trained for such appointments. A large share of the 

 good that has been effected in forest conservancy in these 

 dependencies of our Crown has been done by Scotch- 

 men educated in our Edinburgh Botanical School. In 

 Edinburgh in 1850, at the meeting of the British As- 

 sociation, the public were first warned of the dangers 

 of an indiscriminate forest denudation, and of the 

 disastrous effects which it had produced in India. It 

 was shown that the destruction of forests, and the occur- 

 rence of drought and famine, were related to each other as 

 cause and effect. Edinburgh, with its great botanical 

 school, its splendid botanic garden, and its arboretum 

 acquired by the city at a cost of £20,000, its Chair of 

 Agriculture, and its Botanical and Arboricultural Societies, 

 is exceptionally w^ell fitted to be the home of a national 

 school of forestry. 



Through the liberality of many of the exhibitors at the 



