THE ANNUAL MEETING. 95 



factors and their agents to help the Authority, and help myself 

 for the Board, in every possible way in negotiating reasonable 

 terms for the land that will be needed. 



" If we can get along well in that direction we have still other 

 things to contemplate. For example, we must train the men who 

 are going to be employed in forestry. We have got a certain 

 number of officers now in the army who have applied for work. 

 Most of them will have to be trained, and if they intend to 

 attain real utility in the higher branches of the service they 

 must go through a good course of technical and scientific educa- 

 tion. It will not be wise for them to be content with any 

 limited or inefficient course, and while I am talking of that I 

 would like to remind them and to remind you that the number 

 of officers who will be wanted not only to-day but within the 

 next ten years will be limited. In France, where the forest 

 service is a very large and a very old one and where the reserves 

 of forests are extensive, the total number of men in the higher 

 branches of the service does not, I think, altogether exceed 

 400 or 450. It will be many years, probably fifty years, before 

 400, or even half that number perhaps, may be required in 

 Scotland. Then, coming to the training of working foresters — 

 the men who have been in the army or civilians who are going 

 to take part in this work — the Authority and the Board have 

 got to arrange for their education. They cannot plant without 

 the men, and the men must have some knowledge of the method 

 of planting. Thanks to the Duke of Atholl and Colonel 

 Fothringham, a school has been established for the practical 

 training of foresters at Birnam. That school is quite insufficient. 

 We want it to be increased, and we also require other schools 

 of the same kind. That subject has to be taken up by the 

 Authority. Further, it is impossible to plant unless you have 

 the plants and seeds. We have had a woefully bad sequence 

 of seed years in the forests, and the result to-day, what with the 

 war and all that it has meant to labour in this country, is that 

 we are lamentably devoid of the necessary plants for the afforesta- 

 tion of the land. I would ask everyone who has got any 

 opportunity of collecting cones, particularly of Scots pine and 

 of larch, to do so with the utmost possible speed so that we may 

 preserve all the seed we can possibly get in the country at 

 present. I know it has been difficult to collect in the past, and 

 I also know from experience elsewhere that the other countries 



