lO TRANSACTIONS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



green, or allowed it to seed itself, or left it to the mercy of bird 

 and beast, would attract attention, but the ordinary owner of 

 woodlands may complacently commit equivalent follies with the 

 approval of a public which enjoys sport or silvan scenery, and 

 is hardly yet awakened to the social importance of silviculture. 



It is, indeed, not unlikely that practical public sympathy 

 for silviculture may take the impulsive form of advancing 

 State loans for afforestation, upon which the urban unemployed 

 will have first call, to the signal detriment of silviculture. In 

 the absence of competent, responsible, continuous control, 

 afforestation loans would be wasted in the future as have 

 been private resources in the past. It is doubtful whether, 

 without legislation, any individual proprietor could tie up 

 property for the hundred years rotation of his timber crop, — 

 in fact, recent legislation has tended towards further loosening 

 the grasp of the dead hand. 



Assuming that the difficulty of a long lease between the 

 State and a succession of owners is overcome, there remain 

 other factors that have brought ruin to existing silviculture. 

 Some of these dangers have been mitigated, it is true, by the 

 Squirrel Club, the increasing dislike of the rabbit, the influence 

 of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, the legal com- 

 pensation for loss by fire — which latter would be more than 

 counterbalanced by the effects of the access to Mountains Bill. 

 The broad fact remains, however, that to grant loans under 

 existing conditions to private individuals would be, from the 

 Treasury point of view, a visionary scheme, unsupported by 

 either competent opinion or official reports. 



To grasp the real problem, it must be remembered that to 

 develop the latent resources of the soil of Scotland 5 million 

 acres should be afforested. This project offers an occasion 

 so signal for increasing the resources and the population of 

 the poorest and least populated district as to rule out a 

 wasteful palliative, in favour of a comprehensive, well-thought- 

 out scheme of development. Loans can be safely granted 

 to a Board of Forestry, or to corporations whose forest lands 

 would be under the direct control of the Board's forest officers. 



Public expenditure on training and experiment there must 

 be, if any effective progress is to be made, and this is preliminary 

 to the purchase of other Inverlievers by the State, or to the 

 granting of loans in any form. 



