IOO TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



trained man, or the man whose training is merely nothing more 

 than his own observation, excellent though it may be. 



" Another thing that the Interim Authority at the present 

 moment is trying to start is a thorough investigation into the 

 plagues that are besetting us in the shape of weevils and 

 beetles. If any of you gentlemen have a plague of weevils 

 and beetles in the woods that you administer — and I have 

 little doubt you have — it would be a considerable help to the 

 Authority if you would advise them of any plagues you have 

 recently observed. It will be a help to the Authority to get 

 notes from different parts of the country — the time when these 

 plagues first appear after felling and the means taken to check 

 them, if any, and the results of burning the brush and the top 

 of the stools. All these are things which have been done in some 

 cases I know, and if careful notes are kept and communicated 

 to the Authority or to this Society they would be of very 

 considerable help to future investigations and research. 



"The question of seeds and cones Colonel Sutherland has 

 already touched upon, and I may add that during the last few 

 months, numbers of inquiries from nurserymen, not only in this 

 country but abroad, have come under my notice. There is a 

 very great shortage, but I think it likely that in a number 

 of woods where felling is going on at the present time, if a 

 careful lookout is kept, there will be found an appreciable 

 amount of seed available for collection during this finishing 

 winter and coming spring. There might be collected from 

 the felled trees a considerable number of cones which would 

 be of material assistance. 



" I do not think, gentlemen, there is anything more I can say 

 on behalf of the Authority at the present moment. There is 

 really so very little scope for doing anything until the Authority 

 is made permanent, but the Parliamentary Bill for making the 

 Authority into a permanent one is in such an advanced state 

 of preparation that I hope it will not be very long before it is 

 brought into Parliament. The future of the Bill is, however, a 

 matter entirely beyond the power of the Authority. All we can 

 do is to get the Bill into a very forward state of preparation and 

 pass it on to the Cabinet and the Government, and they in their 

 turn will no doubt alter and revise it, if they think necessary, and 

 will then introduce it into Parliament, but how long it may take 

 to get it through Parliament is more than I or any other man 



