146 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the work has not been barren. The whole subject now appears 

 ripe for action. We are convinced that education and private 

 effort have reached a point beyond which they cannot be expected 

 to advance without the assistance of authoritative demonstration 

 and research, which have indeed been for years urgently needed. 



27. Importance of Immediate Action. — People in search of a 

 remedy for unemployment and rural depopulation have been at 

 times disposed to rush afforestation. This is not sur]irising, con- 

 sidering that forests of the same size give ten times as much 

 employment as sheep farms ^ and would enable hundreds ot 

 small landholders to thrive in glens where a score could otherwise 

 scarcely scrape a living.- We find no such impatience among 

 those best acquainted with the subject and with Scots conditions, 

 but they realise that the movement cannot proceed until the first 

 cautious ventures have proved that afforestation can in practice 

 be reconciled with other interests, and that it is beyond doubt for 

 the public good. Education alone can never afford this proof. 



Caution in deciding upon the first steps to be taken does not 

 imply delay in taking them. The length of time which these 

 trial undertakings themselves require for development before 

 they can supply a lesson for further action is, in our judgment, 

 a reason for losing no time in getting them started. It would be 

 bad policy to spend time and money in completing the machine 

 of education only to find that twenty years more must be spent 

 on practical experiments before a comprehensive scheme can be 

 launched. A steady movement all along the line appears in this 

 undertaking to be the only sure mode of advance. 



John Stirling-Maxwell, Chairman. 



LOVAT. 



R. Munro Ferguson. 

 John D. Sutherland. 

 Jno. Fleming. 

 Matthew G. Wallace. 

 R. H. N. Sellar. 



H. Warrk Cornish, Secretary. 

 December 19 11. 



' Without reckoning the population absoihed in attendant iiuiustiies which 

 might in many cases treble that figure. 



- See l\fporl of Depart mental Coii/iiiittcc on British I-'orcstry, 1903, Section 

 9; also Report on Afforestation in .Scotland, ))ul)lished by the Royal .Scottish 

 Arboricultural Society, 1911. 



