6 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Wind was certainly the forester's main enemy. Soil — its 

 quantity and quality — was a minor consideration in forestry, 

 provided it was not water-logged. 



Difficulties not Insuperable. 



It would take, not one lecture, but a course of lectures, to 

 enter thoroughly into the question of profit. He could only 

 touch upon the principal difficulties to be overcome, and he 

 thought they would agree that these difficulties were by no 

 means insuperable. And the time had arrived when either the 

 difficulties must be overcome or landowners must cease to 

 grow trees, because the increased expense of land management, 

 the great fall in value of agricultural land, the steady rise in 

 rates, and, above all, the paralysing effect of the Death Duties, 

 made it imperative that woodland should not continue to be 

 treated as an ornamental luxury. Despite the incessant and 

 growing demand for timber in this country, the complaint was 

 very commonly heard from those landowners who had fine 

 timber to dispose of, that they could not get a decent price for 

 it. Until British woodlands had been brought into regular 

 rotation, and could supply timber of uniform quality and 

 regular annual quantity, timber merchants would resort to 

 those countries where these conditions were fulfilled. Speaking 

 of the natural regeneration of timber where the ground was 

 protected from grazing, and where there was little or no ground 

 game. Sir Herbert Maxwell said, that if British landowners could 

 but realise the enormous cost of maintaining a stock of rabbits, 

 we should soon see the last of that accursed race — except in 

 their proper place, the fenced warren. In connection with this 

 part of the lecture, many details and illustrations were given 

 regarding the different classes of trees, and the results obtained 

 with them. 



To Increase Rural Population. 



There was another aspect of the forestry question which was 

 almost as important as the commercial one — namely, the social 

 aspect. The attention of all of them — politicians, philanthropists, 

 and people in general — was greatly absorbed by the question 

 of rural depopulation. Owing to the great fall in the value of 

 sheep farms, there were hundreds of thousands of acres suitable 

 for forest growth now rented at from 6d. to 2s. an acre. From 



