198 REPORT ON A VISIT TO SCOTTISH AND ENGLISH FORESTS, 
the great landowners and their agents, our flying visit was 
accomplished in a most agreeable and instructive manner. We 
eagerly seize this opportunity of offering to all concerned with it 
our sincere and hearty thanks, We would fain also express to the 
eminent personages who did us the honour of receiving us so 
graciously, that we accepted their kind marks of attention as being 
addressed, not only to ourselves, but also to the French Government 
and the Forest School at Nancy, which year by year, since 1868, 
has offered to the English Students, without any distinction of 
nationality, the advantages of a forest education. 
Before proceeding to a description of our tour, it will perhaps 
render the narrative more intelligible if we give a brief sketch of 
the country we visited, its general aspect, and natural resources. 
From a forest point of view, Scotland may be divided into two 
distinct regions, by an imaginary line drawn from Perth, on the 
Firth of Tay, to Greenock, on the estuary of the Clyde. To the 
south of this line we find the Lowlands, a country which agriculture 
and manufactures have combined to render one of the richest in the 
world. The economic situation of this wealthy district is as 
prosperous as possible, and the thoroughly developed system of high 
farming which is there employed leaves but little room for forest 
cultivation. The Lowlands are bounded on the south by the 
Cheviot Hills, which afford excellent sheep-walks. To the north of 
this line lie the Highlands, intersected in all directions by the far- 
stretching chain of the Grampians, whose rugged nature gives to the 
country an aspect not unlike that of the western coast of the 
Scandinavian peninsula. One would imagine that at some earlier 
geological period immense polar glaciers, flowing over the solidified 
North Sea, traversed the whole of the north of Scotland, polishing 
on their way the mountain sides, excavating the lake beds, and 
breaking off abruptly the cliffs surrounding the coast. The culture 
of cereals is here confined to a few favoured localities, situated near 
the mouths of the rivers or on the low-lying ground bordering the 
sea, where the glacial deposits constitute an excellent soil. The 
rest of the country is wholly occupied by water and heather, and 
thus out of the 15,000,000 acres which this region comprises, only 
1,600,000 (or less than one-eighth) are classed as arable, forest, and 
pasture lands. If out of the remaining 11,000,000 acres of 
unproductive land we allow a half for the lakes, bare ridges, and 
sterile mountain tops, there will still remain 5,000,000 acres 
capable of furnishing valuable timber forests. Here then is a 
