6 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



time, but I do not think this war-time, after what we have 

 learned during the war, is a time for delay. We do not 

 want any more talk, but we want something done. This Society 

 went to the Board of Agriculture and pressed their views that 

 something ought to be done a few years ago, and what was 

 the answer? After some talk they were told, 'We have no 

 money ; it has all been spent on small-holdings,' which, I think, 

 we are all agreed are economically unsound. Small-holdings 

 and forestry may go together in certain districts, providing 

 a living for men, but not agriculture or small-holdings by 

 themselves. The two ought to go together. They may work 

 together, and they are not antagonistic, but they should not 

 be under the control of the same body. A body of men who 

 may be quite good for agriculture would be absolutely helpless 

 in controlling a forestry system for the United Kingdom. 

 I have much pleasure in asking the meeting to adopt this 

 resolution, and in seconding Mr Richardson's motion." 



Mr E. P. Stebbing. — "The second clause of the Resolution 

 reads ' of freeing the local administration in Scotland from the 

 subservience to agricultural administration,' etc. To mention 

 two large countries where forestry plays an important part in 

 the economy of the nation, America and India, it is noticeable 

 that forestry forms one of the branches under the Secretary 

 for Agriculture. The following extracts from the report of 

 Mr Wilson, Secretary for Agriculture in America (which I had 

 occasion to review soon after it appeared), published a little 

 over a decade ago, are perhaps to the point : — The report 

 reviewed the work of the Department of the preceding eight 

 years, during the whole of which period Mr Wilson had held 

 charge of the Department. During the period the appropriations 

 from the Department had doubled though they had taken 

 forty years to reach the figure attained at the beginning of 

 the period under review. 'This money had been spent,' says 

 Mr Wilson, ' in the promotion of agriculture, using the term 

 in its widest sense.' Mr Wilson estimated the wealth of 

 production on farms at the end of the period (12 years ago) 

 at ^1,283,000,000, 'the highest amount yet attained by the 

 farmer of this or any other country, a stupendous aggregate 

 of results of brain, muscle, and machine' — an increase of over 

 36 % over the census figure of six years before. ' It was not 

 only sufficient,' he said, 'to supply the wants of $3 million of 



