II4 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
for various reasons, they did not appear suitable for the purpose. 
Two additional properties are now under consideration, and as soon 
as a suitable estate has been found the Treasury will be approached 
with a view to purchase. 2. The recommendation of the 
Departmental Committee that lecturers should be appointed at 
Oxford and Cambridge has to some extent been met by the 
augmentation of the salary of the Sibthorpian Professor of Rural 
Economy at Oxford, who is now Professor of Forestry Botany. 
It is understood that an estate will be placed at his disposal for 
demonstration purposes. 3. A sum of £500 a year, which was 
placed by the Treasury at the disposal of the Board for the 
establishment of lectureships in forestry, has been allocated to the 
University College of North Wales at Bangor and the Armstrong 
College at Newcastle-on-Tyne. The results have been most 
encouraging. A considerable number of students have been 
found desirous of taking a full collegiate course of study, good 
classes of practical foresters and others have been conducted at 
selected local centres, while there has been a constant demand 
on the part of landowners for expert advice from the lecturer. 
4. A school for working woodmen has been established by the 
Commissioners of Woods and Forests in the Forest of Dean, and 
is now in the third year of its existence. From eighteen to 
twenty youths are receiving instruction. 5. Legislation would 
be necessary to remove the inequality in the levy of the estate 
duty on timber, and it has not been possible hitherto to take any 
steps in this direction. The matter has, however, not been lost 
sight of. 6. “The Railway Fires Act, 1905,” which comes into 
force on January 1, 1908, will give some protection to owners of 
woods against loss by fire caused by sparks from locomotives. 
7. Special inquiries were made in 1905, with a view of ascertain- 
ing the extent of land now occupied by woods in Great Britain, 
and the results have been published in the Agricultural Returns 
for that year. The three categories suggested by the Depart- 
mental Committee were adopted. 8. With the object of ascertain- 
ing the districts in which local authorities have developed the 
catchment-area of their water supplies by afforestation, the Board 
communicated with the Local Government Boards for England 
and Scotland, who sent out a circular letter to all local authorities 
asking for a return. The results were tabulated and published in 
the Journal of the Board of Agriculture for November 1904. A 
leaflet on the “Relation of Woods to Domestic Water Supply” was 
