66 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



unfitted alike by habit and physique for the laborious toil which 

 forestry entails. Further, the need for temporary employment 

 usually arises suddenly, and cannot be anticipated many weeks 

 in advance, while forestry work is not of a kind which can be 

 taken up and dropped at a moment's notice, but entails 

 anticipation by months. 



The absence of the necessary experience in the unemployed, 

 and the fact that relief work is required at a period of the 

 year when work in the open is unpleasant, were points also 

 emphasised by Mr Elwes, who opposed the utilisation of the 

 unemployed for forestry purposes, as did various other speakers. 

 On the other hand, as was pointed out by Mr Thomas Shaw of 

 Sheffield, all large corporations are faced with the fact that relief 

 work has to be found not otily for the unemployed, but also at certain 

 seasons for members of the corporation staffs some of whom are 

 thoroughly accustotned to open-air work, but for who?n it is difficult 

 to find sufficient employment during the winter season. As these 

 men have to be employed, they are frequently put to stone-breaking 

 or other useless work, which could be done much cheaper by other 

 methods. Even, therefore, if tree-planting is not directly profitable, 

 it might be found that the loss in it was much less than i?i some other 

 methods of relief, while there is always a possibility of ulti7nate 

 profit. For this reason, if for no other, it would be worth while for 

 the Government to eticourage local authorities to undertake afforesta- 

 tion work. 



Another point was emphasised by several speakers — granted 

 that aff^orestation cannot be looked upon as an immediate and 

 commercially profitable cure for unemployment, it is important 

 not to forget its potential value in reducing the causes which 

 lead to unemployment. It may be granted that to turn a large 

 body of unselected men — who, for the most part, do not desire 

 anything but temporary employment — out on a hillside to engage 

 in forestry operations is to court disaster; but, on the other 

 hand, as Mr A. C. Forbes pointed out, many of the difficulties 

 can be avoided by "associating aff^orestation, not with the 

 temporary provision of employment, but by attaching it to a 

 carefully thought-out scheme of a more permanent and pro- 

 gressive character" {Report, p. 48). Mr Forbes brought forward 

 the suggestion previously made by Dr Schlich in a lecture 

 delivered at the Carpenters' Hall, that an eff'ort should be 

 made to build up a permanent staff' on aff"orestation areas with 



