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suggestions, from Dr Borthwick that at this coming Exhibition 

 we might try, as far as we can, to make the Show representative 

 of what the woods in Scotland have done during the war, and 

 with that view the Department over which I have at present the 

 honour of presiding in Scotland will do its very best to make its 

 share of the Exhibition representative. I may be allowed to say 

 in that connection that since I have been in that Department 

 — for a year — hardly a day passes that I have not occasion to 

 be grateful to my friend on my right, Colonel Sutherland, for the 

 good foundations which he laid there, and if, as I believe, the 

 exhibition we have at the showyard will be of considerable 

 interest, it must be largely due to those who went before me 

 that it has been possible to bring such things together, and that 

 Scotland has been able to take so considerable a part in finding 

 timber. Perhaps I may mention two things which will interest 

 you and which have struck me. One is that a good many of the 

 most important woods which have been felled by the Government 

 during the war were planted in response to encouragement given 

 by the Highland and Agricultural Society at the beginning of 

 last century. They gave medals to people who laid out planta- 

 tions, and many of the plantations which earned medals are 

 those which have been most useful in the war. The other thing 

 which struck me was that among the practical foresters in 

 Scotland, who have been of real value to the Government, a 

 very large proportion were trained at the school in the Royal 

 Botanic Garden, showing, again, how encouragement given at 

 a timely moment may produce good results in forestry. Another 

 thing is this, that when we came to make systematic measure- 

 ments of crops of growing timber in Scotland it became at once 

 apparent that the capability of our soil and climate for growing 

 timber has not been exaggerated but very much under-rated in 

 the past, and I may say the Report of the Reconstruction Com- 

 mittee, so far as it went into figures of production, is not only on 

 the safe side but greatly under-rates the possibilities of silviculture 

 in this country." 



Colonel Fothringham of Murthly. — "One suggestion I would 

 like to make in connection with this exhibition. A little depart- 

 ure from the old style of exhibition is, I understand, being 

 arranged by the Royal Agricultural Society in England. They 

 propose to have a demonstration of some of the woodland 



