1 66 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



objective between the principals concerned. It is this similarity 

 of objective which has made the Crofter Act workable in the 

 Highlands, and the Irish Land Bill impossible in Ireland : which 

 in Army affairs, in spite of prophets of evil, made the Company 

 system, as opposed to the Adjutant or Regimental system, the high 

 road to military efficiency. It is community of purpose, taken 

 in conjunction with similarity, or divergence of method, which is 

 responsible on the one hand for the smoothness of working 

 between the " sound company " and the bank financing it ; or 

 on the other, for the friendly but standing feud between the " go 

 ahead branch," and the central office, or the little rubs between 

 the Railway Directors and the Board of Trade. 



The question therefore of importance in any State-aided 

 scheme is not the measure of dual control, but whether the 

 purposes and methods of the two contracting parties are identical. 

 Is this likely to be the case.'* The answer is surely yes ! The 

 objective is the same — well-grown woods under the best silvi- 

 cultural conditions, and at the least possible cost. 'As to 

 method, there may at first be differences, but even these will 

 tend to disappear as silvicultural education becomes standardised 

 and experience of the administration of wide areas is acquired. 



As has been pointed out afforestation work will be mainly 

 conducted by contract, with specifications clearly laid down 

 before hand, and it is difficult to see why trees should not be 

 dibbled in 4000 to the acre with the same accuracy and 

 satisfaction to both parties, as when a crofter contracts to build 

 a dry dyke or Lucas and Aird erect a Barrage on the Nile. 



Another argument that is used against State-aided Affores- 

 tation is that the landlord might get too high a return for his 

 land. There is no reason this should be the case. Should the 

 landlord wish to buy out the State, it is proposed that, apart from 

 the return of the whole money advanced by the State, a further 

 bonus should be paid, the exact amount of this bonus depending 

 on the ultimate prospective profit, and the increment of wood 

 added during the .State's period of investment. While there is no 

 reason why this bonus should be fixed so low that the landlord 

 would make too large a profit, it is advisable in the general 

 interest that the purchase clause should be made sufficiently 

 inviting to make sales the rule not the exception. 



It must never be forgotten that funds for afforestation will be 

 always hardly won from a reluctant Treasury ; also that there 



