2 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBOR1CULTURAL SOCIETY. 



satisfaction to this Society that this question has got the length 

 of being considered by a Committee of the Cabinet. For more 

 than sixty years now this Society has been agitating to get 

 forestry recognised as a great national industry, but very little 

 progress has been made. Royal Commissions and Departmental 

 Committees have collected evidence and have reported on 

 various occasions, but apparently all these reports have been 

 pigeon-holed, and we are just where we were. The report by 

 the Forestry Sub-Committee of the Reconstruction Committee, 

 however, has had some effect both with the Government and 

 outside it, and there is evidently some prospect now of some- 

 thing being done. The first part of the resolution is to welcome 

 the announcement that a Committee of the Cabinet has the 

 question under consideration. I think every one in the Society 

 will agree to that part of the resolution at any rate. 



" The second paragraph of the resolution says : — ' The Meeting 

 desires to impress on Lord Curzon and Mr Barnes the paramount 

 necessity of placing the Central Control of Forest Policy under 

 men conversant with the subject.' Of course we are assuming 

 that a Central Authority is to be set up, and when that Central 

 Authority is set up I think it is very important that the control 

 of policy should be placed in the hands of men who are con- 

 versant with the subject. I take that to mean conversant with 

 forestry in this country. They may be, of course, conversant 

 with forestry in other countries, but I think the essential thing 

 is that they should also be conversant with forestry in the 

 United Kingdom. We do not want to have this Central 

 Control in the hands of men who do not know about home 

 forestry. Forestry is a very intricate thing. Some people 

 evidently consider it a very simple matter, but it is a very 

 complicated thing compared with agriculture and horticulture. 

 In agriculture you have annual crops, and if a farmer or an 

 agriculturist of any kind makes a mistake one year he can rectify 

 it the next. A gardener may make a similar mistake, but he 

 can also rectify it in a very short time. But forestry is a very 

 different thing. In forestry if mistakes are made in the course 

 of a rotation a very great loss may be incurred, and over and 

 above that a great deal of time may be lost. It is very 

 important that the men in control should be men highly skilled 

 in forestry, and that they should also have as perfect a know- 

 ledge as possible of the forestry conditions in this country. 



