50 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The above is little more than a paraphrased short resume of 

 the text of the resolutions and the annexures to them, but if it 

 induces readers to purchase the Proceedings of the conference 

 from the Government printers (price 7s. 6d.) and study them for 

 themselves, it has not been written in vain. The aphorism 

 ligna non verba was used by more than one speaker, and we 

 were reminded that till the appointment of the Forestry Com- 

 mission for the United Kingdom in 191 9 there had been no 

 lack of verba in the welter of Commissions of Inquiry, 

 Departmental Committees, and other wordy official methods of 

 shelving the whole subject of British Forestry in this country. 

 Now that a Forestry Commission is in being, ligna at last will 

 get a chance. 



The conference synchronised with the Empire Timber 

 Exhibition, where delegates were able to see timbers in the 

 rough and manufactured state from nearly every part of the 

 Empire, many of the species having been prepared for the 

 market for the first time. 



8. Continental Notes— France. 



By A. G. Hobart-Hampden. 



I. — In view of recent events some account of Haguenau, the 

 most famous forest in Alsace, may be of interest. The area is 



13.699 hectares (a hectare is practically 2-i- acres), and the forest 

 lies in the plain, midway between the Vosges and the Rhine, in 

 one block. If we add the other Government and Communal 

 forests which touch Haguenau we have a solid block of 



18.700 hectares. The Bienwald, a little to the north, is much 

 like Haguenau in all respects. Thus there are some big forests 

 there — in fact the wooded area of Alsace-Lorraine is 440,594 

 hectares (about 1,101,450 acres), but this is 6000 hectares less 

 than it was in 1870, the Germans having made extensive 

 expropriations for military purposes. 



The peculiarity of the forest of Haguenau is that it is shared 

 between the Government and the town of Haguenau — equally, 

 except that the town pays for the cost of protection. The forest 

 is extremely ancient. The first mention of it is in the eleventh 

 century. The town appears to have been very tenacious of its 

 rights in the forest, and to have contested them with the sovereign 



