THE ANNUAL MEETING. 97 



healthy, and altogether have a pleasanter existence, if they get 

 employment in the country than if they have to fall back on 

 labour in the towns. 



" A side of forestry I would like to refer to as the result of our 

 experience elsewhere is this. The British Government had to 

 buy enormous quantities of standing wood in France, and the 

 Americans had to do the same. But we found that it was in 

 many ways much easier to purchase in France than it was at 

 home, and the reason for that was, when you dealt with a 

 communal district you seldom or never negotiated with an 

 individual owner of trees — you dealt with the Mayor of the 

 Commune. The Mayor of the Commune represented all the 

 interests in the Commune, and was a man in whom everybody 

 placed a tremendous amount of confidence. One lot of trees 

 which we purchased comprised between 80,000 and 90,000 trees, 

 and when we came to have them all mapped out and sub- 

 divided, we found we were dealing with about 250 proprietors. 

 Can you carry that home to Scotland ? Where will you get 

 80,000 trees owned in one block by 250 different men? Some 

 of these owners were possessed of five trees, others were 

 possessed of ten, some of twenty, some of hundreds, and a very 

 few of thousands. We, by the way, usually found that the 

 Mayor was the man who possessed the largest number. But 

 nevertheless they had confidence in him. Now, these men were 

 not holders for life : they were not landholders with security of 

 tenure. They were the real owners of the land, and that very 

 small ownership in France has done much to inspire the interest 

 in forestry. The fact that a man owned five trees gave him 

 not only an interest in the trees and in watching them grow, but 

 it gave him an interest in the soil that inspired him with the 

 desire at the end of a few years not to own five trees but to own 

 fifty. And so it is over there. France has created a national 

 Department for afforestation. It has developed the industries 

 that pertain to afforestation ; it has done everything to help it, 

 with the result that the people realise that when they work in 

 the woods or when they have got anything in the nature of wood 

 to sell, they are going to get the best price for it, and they are 

 also doing something which is bringing to France additional 

 revenue. Of all the patriots I have ever met, and of all the 

 people to do things for their country first, I think the French 

 may claim first place." 



