124 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



i6. Farm Forestry.^ 



By A. W. BORTHWICK, D.Sc, O.B.E. 



The object of the present paper is to call attention to the 

 neglect in this country to turn to greater advantage, both 

 direct and indirect, what in the aggregate amounts to a large 

 area of land regarded as waste scattered about on farms, even 

 in highly cultivated districts, such as banks, knolls, stony or 

 rocky places, steep declivities, hollows, and marshy places. 

 Trees will grow in such situations and produce fencing material 

 and many other timber requirements of the farm. They will 

 grow where no other crops will grow. They encourage the 

 growth of other crops on adjacent lands by the shelter they 

 afford. They effect an ameliorating influence on the local 

 climate, and stock of all kinds thrive better on farms with 

 properly-located plantations in the form of shelter-belts, clumps, 

 and roundels. 



It has been said that about one-half of our home-grown 

 timber is produced in hedgerows, parks, and fields, and there 

 is no doubt but that a considerable proportion of our home 

 supplies could be grown on idle land on farms if suitable places 

 were to be selected with care and discrimination. 



It is not my intention to discuss the advantages and dis- 

 advantages of hedgerow and field timber, further than to say 

 that the objections raised by agriculturists to the over abundance 

 of trees in such places is no doubt well founded, and that in 

 spite of the undoubted value of such trees in adding to the 

 grandeur and beauty of our rural landscapes, there are many 

 places occupied by trees, especially in hedgerows and fields, 

 where the damage done to agricultural crops and the hedges 

 themselves is not justified by any utilitarian advantages. In 

 fact, the reduction in number of trees or their total removal in 

 some places from field margins would be of service in increasing 

 the production of more valuable kinds of crops, and thus help 

 in eliminating waste. The kind of tree suitable for planting in 

 hedgerows and along the sides of public roads, and the places 

 and the conditions suitable for this do not come into the 

 scope of the present paper, but I would like to suggest that 

 by organisation and education, it should be possible for rural 



^ A paper read before the British Association at Hull, in September 1922. 



