148 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



intention of planting up from two to three hundred acres — as a 

 matter of fact the plants had been purchased — but this encourage- 

 ment on the part of the State has effectually precluded any 

 possibility of this being done. 



Another hardship under which proprietors suffer is in 

 connection with the roads. They may plant up trees, and be 

 taxed from anything up to a hundred years. The local authorities 

 are perfectly well aware of their existence, and know that the 

 crop will have to be harvested some day, but they seem to go 

 on the improved old adage, " Always put off till to-morrow what 

 you should do to-day." This is distinctly unfair, and they ought 

 to have the roads in such a condition that they would be 

 impervious to any ordinary strain. Timber is a crop just 

 as much as grain or turnips, and if a farmer expects to find the 

 roads in his district strong enough to bear the removal of his 

 produce, so, I think, a proprietor ought to find the roads strong 

 enough to bear the removal of his timber to the market. The 

 result of this negligence is that the expense of haulage is 

 considerably increased, while the proprietor naturally has 

 to accept a reduced price. 



If afforestation is to be a success, a clean sweep all 

 over Scotland must be made of vermin in the woods. It is a 

 curious thing to consider the fascination of the squirrel ; but 

 the charm, it seems to me, is all in the big curly tail. Had 

 squirrels been without their big, pretty tails, they would have 

 been as ugly as weasels, and would have been exterminated long 

 ago. Even the laird sometimes forgives their depredations when 

 admiring their gambols ; for we are all apt to forgive the sins of 

 beauty. I know one proprietor, in fact, who rigidly preserved 

 them. Nobody can compute how many hundreds of thousands 

 of pounds the squirrel has cost Scotland. We are supposed to 

 be a practical people, and yet our lairds have never, until 

 recently, in the far north, thought of putting their heads together 

 and making an effort to utterly root out the vermin ; but without 

 combination the thing is impossible. Recently I was engaged in 

 valuing two woods, each of several hundred acres in extent, and 

 there was not a Scots fir in these Avoods which had not been 

 more or less destroyed by squirrels. It is pure guess-work, of 

 course, but considering the age and present small dimensions 

 of the trees, and other circumstances of these particular woods, 

 I believe the damage by squirrels must have amounted to more 



