244 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ROBERT BAXTER. 
Robert Baxter was born in 1838 at Oxenfoord, Midlothian. 
He received a good education at the Parish School, and after- 
wards served as an apprentice in the gardens at Oxenfoord 
Castle. From Oxenfoord he entered the nursery of Messrs 
Ballantyne & Sons, Dalkeith, where he remained three years. 
Here he obtained a good knowledge of nursery work, and 
during the three years he spent here, he made the most of his 
spare time by attending evening classes, and in otherwise 
improving his general knowledge. From Ballantyne’s nursery 
he entered the Duke of Buccleuch’s woods at Dalkeith Park, 
under the late Mr Gorrie, who was then the head-forester. 
Five years afterwards Mr Gorrie died, and Baxter now, in spite 
of his youth, became head-forester on the estate, a position which 
he held for thirty-nine years, till his death. Throughout his life 
Mr Baxter gave much of his spare time to the service of societies 
for intellectual and moral improvement, and more particularly 
to those devoted to the interests of the young. 
Mr Baxter was elected a member of the Royal Scottish 
Arboricultural Society in 1871, and he was a life member for 
thirty-four years. For many years he took a deep interest in 
the Society, both as a member and at its Council Board, and 
he was particularly helpful to the Society at the time of the 
International Forestry Exhibition, held in Edinburgh in 1884. 
As a forester, Mr Baxter's work was, generally speaking, of 
the ordinary routine kind, but te this there were many relieving 
incidents, and one of the last of these was the planting of trees 
in Dalkeith Park by His Majesty the King, on the occasion of 
his first state visit to Scotland, in 1903, and from whom he 
received an interesting souvenir in commemoration of the 
occasion. 
JAMES WHYTOCK, 
Dalkeith Gardens. 
