204 REPORT ON A VISIT TO SCOTTISH AND ENGLISH FORESTS, 
and another of larch worth considerably more ; whilst a third forest 
of 1600 acres, composed of Scots fir, was purchased a few years 
ago for £52,000, or only about £30 an acre. The plantations on 
the Culbin Sands, near Forres, would readily find buyers at £50 
an acre at the age of forty-five to fifty years. The very day we 
were at Grantown, the agent for the Strathspey forests concluded a 
bargain to furnish birchwood to the amount of £2000. 
All these figures are fraught with extreme significance for the 
future, and the large forest owners of Scotland will do well to 
pause before allowing their forests to be “ over-worked.” We 
would recall to their recollection the old fable of the goose that 
laid the golden eggs. 
No doubt, pecple are often frightened by the long names and big 
words they find in treatises on scientific forest management, but 
they may very well neglect the text if only they will adopt some of 
the principles which they contain. Let the owner of a forest, after 
having made a careful and detailed inspection of it, divide it off 
into blocks or compartments so arranged that they should be 
uniform as regards conditions of soil and of planting, and then pro- 
ceed to count and measure all the trees of 3 feet girth and upwards, 
classing them in categories according to their diameter. He should 
then open a debit and credit account for each compartment, placing 
on the debit side the actual volume of the standing crop, and on 
the credit side the volume of timber removed at each successive 
felling. This register should always be consulted before under- 
taking any forest operation, and when the annual fellings fall due, 
it will show which compartments can best support the withdrawal of 
timber, and which require to be left untouched. Moreover, the 
balance sheet will render an exact account, favourable or otherwise, 
of the condition of the forest. 
Ten years of such systematic treatment would form in itself the 
basis of a regular forest-working plan, and the doctor’s prescription 
would no longer frighten the patient with its long words. 
Our programme, however, was not yet complete, and fresh ex- 
cursions awaited us in England. It took us only four days to reach 
Windsor Forest from Inverness, passing by the Caledonian Canal, 
and halting at Oban (from whence we visited Staffa and Iona) and 
Edinburgh, whence we took the train to London. 
Windsor Forest——Even with a four-in-hand and the best of 
drivers, it would be impossible to see Windsor Forest in such a 
short time as we had at our disposal. 
