6 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTl'ISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



proprietor, still preserved, as to the wisdom of planting oaks 

 so largely on the comparatively poor soil which was under 

 treatment. Still the planting of oaks was continued for three- 

 quarters of a century, as is evidenced by accounts preserved 

 giving the valuation for probate at the decease of Francis, 

 tenth Earl of Murray, in 1848, where it is stated that at that date 

 the nurseries contained some 70,000 oaks of one to two years 

 of age. 



We may say that from 1767 to 1807, a period of forty years, 

 the forest was planted; from 1807 to 1861 was a period of 

 felling. About the year 1870 the late head forester, Mr Daniel 

 Scott, was appointed, and held that post for nearly fifty years. 

 As time passed on Mr Scott possessed, either in his notes or 

 in his memory, a vast amount of knowledge gained through 

 experience of the management of the forest, and I felt it of 

 the greatest importance to the estate that a record should be 

 preserved in 1910 of the plan which Mr Scott had worked in 

 the management of the forest during this long period, and that 

 with it should be incorporated such traces of the history and 

 valuation of the timber as he might have collected. I requested 

 him accordingly, as far as possible, to embody these records in 

 a report of the forest, and in 191 2 he presented this as a 

 complete history and valuation, represented by a hundred pages 

 or more of typewritten folio which had occupied a large part of 

 his spare time during the winters of 1910-11 — an invaluable 

 contribution to the subject and a most valuable possession to 

 the owners. 



In Mr Scott's Report he divided the main and single block of 

 the forest, including Sluie, into sixty sections, with ten additional 

 sections or so for outlying plantations in the county of Elgin, 

 for a total of some 5130 acres. Some of the sections were 

 really too large for the purpose of management, covering as 

 they did in some cases 120 to 130 acres. Hence they were 

 out of proportion to others, and were unmanageable, as units, 

 for planting, felling, pruning, or so on. This, however, is 

 a defect which need not cause much inconvenience. The 

 problem before us, and which Mr Scott's Report disclosed, is 

 that of continuing to plant hardwoods on the scale which has 

 been carried out from the commencement in 1765 until recently. 

 Grigor speaks in his Arboriculture of the fine deep soil occurring 

 in the woods in the Spey Valley of the Duke of Richmond and 



