PREFACE- 

 IN publishing this Report, the Council of the Royal Scottish 

 Arboricultural Society desires to convey its best thanks to Lord 

 Lovat and Captain Stirling of Keir, and to all those who have 

 assisted them, for the time and labour ungrudgingly given to its 

 preparation. 



This Survey is the first serious attempt to grapple with the 

 economic difficulties which confront afforestation in that part of 

 Great Britain where the largest extent of plantable land— that 

 is to say, land sufficiently good and sufficiently cheap— is to be 

 found. It would have been easy to select an area where most 

 of these difficulties would have been avoided, and to create 

 a forest under ideal silvicultural conditions within a ring fence. 

 Such areas do exist, and no one will deny that they have the 

 first claim on afforestation. But if silviculture is to become a 

 leading industry in the Highlands of this country, as it is in 

 those of France, Belgium and Germany, and to be an important 

 source of national wealth and national employment, as it is in 

 those countries, it must invade the wintering of the high sheep 

 farms and deer forests which occupy the bulk of northern 

 Scotland. The writers have therefore, at the request of the 

 Council, deliberately set themselves to face the difficulties which 

 have there to be met. 



The Council cannot adopt every opinion contained in a 

 document which raises so many new and complicated questions, 

 but it desires to express its unreserved approval of the general 

 method followed in this Survey, and to endorse the opinion of 

 the writers that a Survey should aim rather at ascertaining the 

 most favourable forest centres than at recording the number of 

 acres fit to plant. The Council desires once more to state its 

 conviction, which is confirmed by every page of this Report, 

 that a general Survey of Scotland for this purpose is an urgent 

 national need which it is the duty of the Government to meet at 

 once. 



