124 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



i6. When Afforestation Comes.^ 



By Sir John Fleming, LL.D. 



The title of my paper indicates that I have a belief that 

 afforestation, by which I mean afforestation aided by the 

 State, is bound to come. In that opinion I think all are now 

 agreed, no matter what political complexion the Government 

 of the day may assume. I think we may safely reckon that 

 the movement to afforest a large portion of the surface of 

 these islands is sure to receive the hearty support of the 

 general body of the people. Various considerations have 

 brought public opinion up to this point, and these may be 

 summarised as follows : — First, the high price to which timber 

 has risen ; second, the extraordinary demand for timber for 

 paper-making (a comparatively new industry) ; and third, the 

 laudable desire to create some new industry to keep more 

 people on or about the land of the country. These reasons 

 are each of them powerful, and have been brought nearer 

 to practical results by the evidence collected by the Coast 

 Erosion Committee, and by the passing of the Development 

 Bill of the present Government, which ordains the setting 

 aside of a large sum of money annually for the express purpose, 

 amongst others, of afforestation. In the full expectation that 

 State-aided afforestation will take a beginning in the near 

 future, all minds with a bent for arboriculture are giving much 

 thought to this subject, a subject fraught with large issues, 

 climatic, social, and financial. The matter, I observe, is 

 being discussed by arboricultural and agricultural societies all 

 over the country, and it is but right that Aberdeen, near 

 to which, without a doubt, there will be wrought out many 

 large, and it is to be hoped successful experiments, should 

 take the matter into consideration, and make up its mind as 

 to the best manner in which these experiments should be 

 gone about. Undue haste to-day might mean disaster forty 

 or fifty years hence. It is easy to spend money, still easier 

 to waste it. To make a few suggestions as to what kinds 

 of timber we should grow, to hint at a few necessary arrange- 

 ments without which profitable marketing of the forest product 

 will be impossible, and to utter a word of caution against too 



^ Read on nth December 1909 at the Annual Meeting of the Aberdeen 

 Branch. From the report in the Aberdeen Free Press. 



