84 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Barnard and the College authorities for their kind reception, 
and Professor Gilchrist returned thanks on behalf of Lord 
Barnard and his colleagues. In doing so Professor Gilchrist 
mentioned that, as the result of an agreement entered into: 
between H.M. Office of Woods and the College authorities, 
the local management of the Chopwell Woods had been taken 
over by the College, and that these would afford opportunities 
for practical demonstration to the College students of forestry. 
Before the reading of Mr Forbes’s paper the party were 
conducted over the electrical and engineering laboratories, 
in which some interesting experiments were shown. In the 
engineering laboratory a fine testing-machine has been installed, 
and a demonstration in timber-testing, the chief result of which 
was to show that clean-grown foreign coniferous timber is much 
stronger under a crushing strain than that of home growth, was 
given for the benefit of the party. 
The Annual Excursion Dinner was held in the Central Station 
Hotel in the evening, the President, Mr Steuart Fothringham,,. 
being in the chair. The loyal toasts were given from the chair,. 
and other toasts proposed were the Lord Mayor, Magistrates 
and Town Council of Newcastle, by Mr Gillanders; the Guests, 
by Mr Buchanan; the Royal Scottish Aboricultural Society, by 
Sir Francis Walker, Commissioner to the Duke of Northumber- 
land; Kindred Societies, Educational Institutions, and the 
Landed Interest. 
Thursday, znd August, the Excursion party spent in the 
neighbourhood of Hexham. From Newcastle to Hexham the 
journey was by rail, and on their arrival at Hexham they drove 
to Dilston, the property of Mr Beaumont, M.P., where they were- 
met by Mr Balden, the estate agent, who acted as guide. In 
passing through the “ Devil’s Water Glen,” some fine clean- 
grown oak and larch, girthing about 8 feet on the average at 
breast-height, were seen, and after an inspection of a thriving 
young larch and Scots pine plantation on the Duke of 
Northumberland’s property, the Dipton Woods, part of which 
belong to Mr Beaumont and part to the Duke of Northumber- 
land, were entered. On entering the first section of these, which 
belongs to the Duke of Northumberland, Mr Gillanders, his: 
Grace’s forester, produced and explained a working-plan which 
he had prepared for the systematic management of all the 
woods on the ducal property here. In a part of the Dipton. 
