142 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of years, of a special officer for this purpose — not necessarily 

 a fully trained forest-ofificer, but a man who has a thorough 

 knowledge of Scots woods and Scots soils. 



We suggest that the County Council of each county which 

 appears /r/w^/^rr/V worth surveying, or expresses a desire to be 

 surveyed, should be invited to appoint two or three persons to 

 assist the officer in making the survey of that county, and that, 

 failing their appointment by the County Council, suitable persons 

 should be selected by the Demonstration Forest Board or by the 

 Forestry Department of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, if 

 such is created. 



24. Advisi7ig Forest-officers. — The remaining proposal — that for 

 the appointment of an advising forest-officer — is favoured by the 

 Development Commissioners in their report, and requires little 

 explanation. Afforestation must, in the nature of things, be 

 slow and gradual, but the application of wise management to 

 existing woods may, in comparatively few years, make a sub- 

 stantial addition to the wealth of the country and to the field 

 of healthy employment. It has already been shown that private 

 woods cannot be brought into order without expert advice 

 (see 12}, and that such advice is now only in rare instances 

 obtainable (see 11). A considerable number of private owners 

 in Scotland at the present time are desirous of obtaining working- 

 plans — instances of actual demands for advice for this purpose 

 have come to the notice of members of the Committee — and the 

 lecturers at the teaching centres are unable to undertake more 

 than a fraction of this work. We anticipate that if the best 

 advice obtainable is offered by the Government, and if this offer 

 is accompanied by some such inducements as those suggested 

 in the following section of our report, the demand for it will 

 become general. 



We suggest that the Government should begin by at once 

 appointing a chief advising forest-ofificer. The task of laying 

 down the lines on which working-plans are to be made for 

 800,000 acres of woods in Scotland, and of supervising their 

 construction, will be one of extreme responsibility and can only 

 be entrusted to a man of wide grasp and experience, and one 

 with experience of administration on a large scale. As the 

 preparation of working-plans is a mc/st laborious business, we 

 think that the chief advising officer will, from the first, require 

 one assistant, and we anticipate that within a short time three 



