58 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It is not suggested that women are fitted for performing all 

 manner of duties that come under the domain of forestry, nor 

 that all women are suited to certain duties, but probably enough 

 has been said to show that certain women are capable of carry- 

 ing out certain operations connected with forestry in an 

 economical manner, and at the same time benefiting materially 

 in health and physique. 



The above relates wholly to the practical side of the matter, 

 and the writer feels that he is unfitted for dealing with the 

 technical part of it, or even to speak of the theoretical training 

 of women in forestry ; but he must not be held as looking upon 

 them simply as " hewers of wood and drawers of water," as he 

 believes them capable of doing much more when properly trained. 

 A thoughtful article apropos of this, by Mr G. P. Gordon, B.Sc, 

 appears in the Quarterly Journal of Forestry for October 1918, 

 in which he deals very tactfully with the causes of success and 

 failure. 



There are, as stated above, certain classes of women better 

 suited than others for forestry work, but this is a matter that 

 may right itself. When the glamour of " war work " passes 

 away and the fashion changes, probably many of those who set 

 out to dignify labour will give up forestry and other forms of 

 land work, but it is evident from what has been done during 

 the war that women are able and willing to tackle sustained 

 labour. Even if a former attempt at dual control in keeping the 

 trees (in a garden) was not a complete success, it looks as if 

 women were destined to help to re-clothe the naked forest areas 

 and hillsides of Britain with trees. 



The writer has always advocated the conjunction ot small- 

 holdings with forestry, for the mutual advantage that would 

 accrue through available seasonable labour on the part of the 

 male members of the holding families, but probably these same 

 holdings might do as much in providing the women to carry on 

 a great part of the routine work in forestry. Probably very few 

 of the townsfolk could be tempted to go " back to the land," 

 especially to the areas to which the greater production of timber 

 must be relegated; therefore the families born and bred in situ 

 should be looked to to carry on the imperative work of 

 afforestation. 



