1 86 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



scantling at the same rate, independently of its origin. I con- 

 sider that the plan of afforesting 9,000,000 acres in sixty years is 

 unnecessarily ambitious, and that the afforestation of 6,000,000 

 acres with conifers, by the combined efforts of the State and others, 

 should meet every reasonable demand. As yet the landowners, 

 large and small, have not had a fair chance, and until such a 

 chance has been given and refused, it is too early to talk of 

 expropriation on a large scale. 



I cannot agree to the proposal to work a third of the area 

 to be afforested on a short rotation, for this is an inadvisable 

 makeshift and far too speculative as regards the probabilities of 

 market for small timber. 



23. Report of the Royal Commission on Afforestation. 



Bv Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, Bart. 



The editor has asked me to contribute a note on the Report of 

 the Erosion Commission from the point of view of a landowner. 

 A document which has directed so much attention to silviculture 

 must from that point of view be heartily welcomed, in spite of 

 some inaccuracies and some rather wild proposals. If the 

 Treasury quails (as well it may) before the part assigned to it 

 by the Commissioners, it will be relieved to learn that the area 

 suitable for forest is probably much less than the nine million 

 acres of the Report, and that there is no reason why the State 

 should bear the whole expense and risk of planting it. At 

 levels above 1000 feet trees will not thrive (as I know to my cost) 

 except in good soils and sheltered aspects, and it is doubtful 

 whether even in choice places they can be made to pay. Even 

 from the moorlands below 1000 feet large deductions must be 

 made for: — (i) areas of peat moss, etc., which are not worth 

 planting ; (2) land that is more profitably employed as pasture 

 or grouse ground ; and (3) sheltered places now devoted to 

 wintering sheep or deer, which cannot be planted without 

 rendering large tracts of adjacent high ground perfectly useless. 

 Dr Schlich's six million acres is undoubtedly much nearer the 

 mark than the nine million of the Report. 



. The scheme proposed by Mr Grant and his colleagues is 

 heroic, but heroic methods scarcely suit a difficult and risky 



