72 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



12. Visit to the Forests of Bavaria, 1909. 



By Sir Andrew N. Agnew, Bart. 



The Annual Excursion of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society for 1909 was made to Bavaria, with a view of visiting 

 some of the forests of Southern Germany. Sixty members of 

 the Society took part in the excursion, starting from Edinburgh 

 on Thursday, 29th July, and reaching Munich at midnight on 

 Friday, 30th. Here we were met by Professor Mayr, Professor 

 of Forestry in the University of Munich, who had been 

 appointed by the Bavarian government to accompany us during 

 our tour and give us the benefit of his assistance. No appoint- 

 ment could have been more fortunate, so far as we were concerned, 

 both on account of the Professor's intimate knowledge of the 

 Bavarian forests, and of his lucid and happy way of imparting 

 information and answering the many questions addressed to him. 

 After a day's rest in Munich, we took train to Partenkirchen, 

 a picturesque village in the Bavarian Highlands, about 2200 

 feet above the level of the sea, where we were to make our first 

 acquaintance with the forests of the country. The following is 

 an attempt to record in diary form the main features of each 

 day's excursion. 



AvLg. 2. We started at six in the morning for a long day's 

 expedition, which included a walk of 18 miles and a climb of 

 4000 feet. Our destination was a point named Shachen, where 

 the late King of Bavaria had built himself a hunting lodge. 

 It is 6300 feet above the sea, and close to the wall of limestone 

 precipices which divide Bavaria from the Austrian Tyrol. The 

 walk to Shachen occupied six hours, and led all the way (after 

 the first mile or two) through Government forests. Before 

 entering these, however, we had to thread our way through a 

 singular gorge, only a few yards wide and about one-third of 

 a mile in length, with perpendicular walls of rock several 

 hundred feet in height on either side, and a rushing stream 

 beneath our feet. The term "beneath our feet" is literally 

 true, for the path through the gorge is made of wooden planks 

 resting on iron stanchions driven into the face of the rock. 



The lower slopes of the hills were covered with well-grown 

 mixed woods of spruce, silver fir, beech, and sycamore, 115 

 years old — the spruce having tall straight stems of 100 feet 

 or more. At an elevation of about 3000 feet, we passed 



